UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


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CHANGING  WINDS 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

Novelg. 
Mbs.  Mabtin's  Max. 
Alice  and  a  Family. 

Short  Stories. 
Eight  O'Clock  and  Otheb  Studies. 

Plays. 
FouB  Ibisu  Plays 

Mixed  Mabriage. 

The  Magnanimous  Lovkb. 

The  Critics. 

The  Obangeman. 
Jane  Clegg. 
John  Febguson. 

Political  Study. 
Sir   Edwabd   Cabson   and  the  Ulsteb 
Movement. 


CHANGING  WINDS 

A  NOVEL 


BY 

ST.  JOHN  G.  ERVINE 


!      \  '"  •*>  J'j  \'  \ 


T^tta  fork' 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1928 

A.U  rightt  reaerved 


COPTBIOHT,    1917, 

By  ST.  JOHN  G.  ERVINE. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  February,  1917. 
Reissued  February,  1928. 


•  «•«   -•.  •♦*  • 


.♦J  «'^  ♦     . 


PUNTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMIUCA 
BY   BERWICK  ft  SMITH  CO. 


Co 


H 


T'R 
G0O3 

ET3c 


TO 
^  THE  MEMORY  OF  RUPERT  BROOKE 


183767 

V 


The  translations  from  the  Gaelic  on  pages  77  and  78 
were  made  by  the  late  P.  H.  Pearse,  who  was  executed  in 
Dublin  for  his  part  in  the  Easter  Rebellion.  The  transla- 
tions appeared  in  New  Ireland,  and  I  am  indebted  to  the 
Editor  of  that  review  for  permission  to  reprint  them  here. 


THE  FIRST  BOOK 

OP 

CHANGING  WINDS 


There  are  waters  blown  by  changing  winds  to  laughter, 
And  lit  by  the  rich  skies,  all  day.     And  after, 

Frost,  with  a  gesture,  stays  the  winds  that  dance 
And  wandering  loveliness.     He  leaves  a  white, 

Unbroken  glory,  a  gathered  radiance, 
A  width,  a  shining  peace,  under  the  night. 

RuPEBT  Bbookk. 


CHANGING  WINDS 

THE  FIRST  CHAPTER 


It  would  be  absurd  to  say  of  Mr.  Quinn  that  he  was  an  ill- 
tempered  man,  but  it  would  also  be  absurd  to  say  that  he 
was  of  a  mild  disposition.  William  Henry  Matier,  a 
talker  by  profession  and  a  gardener  in  his  leisure  moments, 
summarised  Mr.  Quinn 's  character  thus:  "He'd  ate  the 
head  off  you,  thon  lad  would,  an'  beg  your  pardon  the 
minute  after!"  That,  on  the  whole,  was  a  just  and  ade- 
quate description  of  Mr.  Quinn,  and  certainly  no  one  had 
better  qualifications  for  forming  an  estimate  of  his  em- 
ployer's character  than  "William  Henry  Matier;  for  he 
had  spent  many  years  of  his  life  in  Mr.  Quinn 's  service  and 
had,  on  an  average,  been  discharged  from  it  about  ten 
times  per  annum. 

Mr.  Quinn,  the  younger  son  of  a  poor  landowner  in  the 
north  of  Ireland,  had  practised  at  the  Bar  without  success. 
His  failure  to  maintain  himself  at  the  law  was  not  due  to 
ignorance  of  the  statutes  of  the  land  or  to  any  inability  on 
his  part  to  distort  their  meaning:  it  was  due  solely  to  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  Unionist  and  a  gentleman.  His  Union- 
ism, in  a  land  where  politics  take  the  place  of  religion,  pre- 
vented him  from  receiving  briefs  from  Nationalists,  and  his 
gentlemanliness  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  accept  briefs 
from  the  Unionists ;  for  if  an  Irish  lawyer  be  a  Unionist,  he 
must  play  the  lickspittle  and  tomtoady  to  the  lords  and 
ladies  of  the  Ascendency  and  be  ready  at  all  times  and  on 

3 


4  CHANGING  WINDS 

all  occasions  to  deride  Ireland  and  befoul  his  countrymen  in 
the  presence  of  the  English  people. 

"  I  'd  rather  eat  dirt, ' '  Mr.  Quinn  used  to  say, ' '  than  earn 
my  livin '  that  way ! ' ' 

He  contrived,  however,  to  win  prosperity  by  his  marriage 
to  Miss  Catherine  Clotworthy,  the  only  daughter  of  a  Bel- 
fast mill-owner :  a  lady  of  watery  spirit  who  irked  her  hus- 
band terribly  because  she  affected  an  English  manner  and 
an  English  accent.  He  was  very  proud  of  his  Irish  blood 
and  he  took  great  pride  in  using  Ulster  turns  of  speech. 
Mrs.  Quinn,  whose  education  had  been  "finished"  at 
Brighton,  frequently  urged  him  to  abandon  his  "broad" 
way  of  talking,  but  the  principal  effect  she  had  on  him  was 
to  intensify  the  broadness  of  his  accent. 

"I  do  wish  you  wouldn't  say  Aye,"  she  would  plead, 
"when  you  mean  Yes!'* 

And  then  he  would  roar  at  her.  "What!  Bleat  like  a 
damned  Englishman!    Where's  your  wit,  woman?" 

Soon  after  the  birth  of  her  son,  she  died,  and  her  concern, 
therefore,  with  this  story  is  slight.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  of 
her  that  she  inherited  a  substantial  fortune  from  her  father 
and  that  she  passed  it  on,  almost  unimpaired,  to  her  hus- 
band, thus  enabling  him  to  live  in  comfortable  disregard  of 
the  law  as  a  means  of  livelihood.  He  had  a  small  estate  in 
County  Antrim,  which  included  part  of  the  village  of 
Ballymartin,  and  there  he  passed  his  days  in  agricultural 
pursuits. 


Mr.  Quinn,  as  has  been  stated,  was  a  Unionist,  and,  in 
spite  of  his  Catholic  name,  a  Protestant ;  but  he  had  a  poor 
opinion  of  his  Unionist  neighbours  who,  so  he  said,  were  far 
more  loyal  to  England  than  England  quite  liked.  He  hated 
the  English  accent  .  .  .  "finicky  bleatin',"  he  called  it 
.  .  .  and  declared,  though  he  really  knew  better,  that  all 
Englishmen  spoke  with  a  Cockney  intonation.  "A  lot  of 
h-droppers,"  he  called  them,  adding,  "God  gave  them  a 


CHANGING  WINDS  B 

decent  language,  but  they  haven't  the  gumption  to  talk  it !" 
The  Oxford  voice,  in  his  opinion,  was  educated  Cockney, 
uglier,  if  possible,  than  the  uneducated  brand. 

An  Englishman,  hearing  Mr,  Quinn  talk  in  this  fashion, 
might  pardonably  have  imagined  that  he  was  listening  to  a 
fanatical  Nationalist,  a  dynamiting  Fenian,  but  if,  being  a 
Liberal,  he  had  ventured  to  advocate  Home  Rule  for  Ireland 
in  Mr.  Quinn 's  presence,  he  would  speedily  have  found  that 
he  was  in  error.  *  *  Damn  the  fear ! ' '  Mr.  Quinn  would  say 
when  people  charged  him  with  being  a  Home  Ruler.  The 
motive  of  his  Unionism,  however,  was  neither  loyalty  to 
England  nor  terror  of  Rome :  it  was  wholly  and  unasham- 
edly a  matter  of  commerce.  "The  English  bled  us  for 
centuries,"  he  would  say,  *'an'  it's  only  fair  we  should 
bleed  them.  We've  got  our  teeth  in  their  skins,  an'  they're 
shellin'  out  their  money  gran'!  That's  what  the  Union's 
for — to  make  them  keep  on  shellin'  out  their  money.  An' 
instead  of  tellin'  the  people  to  bite  deeper  an'  get  more 
money  out  of  them,  the  fools  o'  Nationalists  is  tellin'  them 
to  take  their  teeth  out!  Never,"  he  would  exclaim  pas- 
sionately, "never,  while  there's  a  shillin'  in  an  English- 
man 's  pocket ! ' ' 

Mr.  Quinn,  of  course,  treated  every  Englishman  he  met 
with  courtesy,  for  be  was  an  Irish  gentleman,  and  he  had 
sometimes  been  heard  to  speak  affectionately  of  some  per- 
son of  English  birth.  The  chief  result  of  this  civility, 
conjoined  with  the  ferocity  of  his  political  statements,  was 
that  his  English  friends  invariably  spoke  of  him  as  "a 
typical  Irishman."  They  looked  upon  him  as  so  much 
comic  relief  to  the  more  serious  things  of  their  own  lives, 
and  seemed  constantly  to  expect  him  to  perform  some 
amusing  antic,  some  innately  Celtic  act  of  comic  folly.  At 
such  times,  Mr.  Quinn  felt  as  if  he  could  annihilate  an 
Englishman. 

"Ah,  well,"  he  would  say,  restraining  himself,  "we  all 
know  what  the  English  are  like,  God  help  them ! ' ' 

It  was  because  of  his  strong  feeling  for  Ireland  and  Irish 


6  CHANGING  WINDS 

things  that  he  decided  to  have  his  son,  Henry,  educated  in 
Ireland.  "Anyway,"  he  said  to  the  lad,  ''you'll  have  an 
Irish  tongue,  whatever  else  you  have!"  He  sent  the  boy 
to  a  school  in  the  County  Armagh  and  left  him  there  until 
he  discovered  that  he  was  not  being  educated  at  all.  He 
had  questioned  Henry  on  the  history  and  geography  of 
Ireland  one  day,  and  had  found  to  his  horror  that  while 
Henry  could  tell  him  exactly  where  Popocatepetl  was  to 
be  found,  and  knew  that  Mount  Everest  was  29,002  feet 
high,  and  could  name  the  kings  of  England  and  the  dates 
of  their  accession  as  easily  as  he  could  recite  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the  whereabouts  or  char- 
acter of  Lurigedan,  a  hill  in  the  County  Antrim,  and  could 
tell  him  nothing  of  the  Red  Earls  and  the  beautiful  queens 
of  Ireland.  He  knew  something  that  was  true,  and  much 
that  was  not,  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  King  Alfred,  but 
nothing,  true  or  false,  of  Deirdre  and  Red  Hugh  O'Neill. 

"What  the  hell's  the  good  of  knowin'  about  Popocate- 
petl," Mr.  Quinn  shouted  at  him,  "when  you  don't  know 
the  name  of  a  hill  on  your  own  doorstep ! ' ' 

Lurigedan  was  hardly  "on  his  own  doorstep,"  and  Mr. 
Quinn  himself  only  knew  of  it  because  he  had  once,  very 
breathlessly,  climbed  to  its  summit,  but  an  Irish  hill  was 
of  more  consequence  to  him  than  the  highest  mountain  in 
the  world;  and  so  he  descended  upon  the  master  of  the 
school,  a  dreepy  individual  with  a  tendency  to  lament  the 
errors  of  Rome,  and  damned  him  from  tip  to  toe  so  effec- 
tually that  the  alarmed  pedagogue  gladly  consented  to  the 
immediate  termination  of  Henry's  career  at  his  establish- 
ment. Thereafter,  Henry  was  educated  in  England,  for 
Mr.  Quinn  did  not  propose  to  sacrifice  efficiency  to 
patriotism. 

"An'  if  you  come  back  talkin'  like  a  damned  Cockney," 
he  said  to  his  son  as  he  bade  good-bye  to  him,  "  I  '11  cut  the 
legs  off  you!" 

When  Henry  came  home  in  the  holidays,  Mr.  Quinn 
would  spend  hours  in  testing  his  tongue. 


CHANGING  WINDS  7 

"Sound  your  rs,"  he  would  say  repeatedly,  because  he 
regarded  one's  ability  to  say  the  letter  r  as  a  test  of  a 
man's  control  of  the  English  language.  "If  you  were  to 
listen  to  an  Englishman  talkin'  on  the  telephone,  you'd 
hear  him  yelpin'  'Ah  yoh  thahf  just  like  a  big  buck  nig- 
ger, 'til  you'd  be  sick  o'  listenin'  to  him!  Say,  'Are  you 
there f,  Henry  son!" 

And  Henry  would  say  ''Are  you  there,  father?"  very 
gravely. 

"That's  right,"  the  old  man  would  exclaim,  listening 
with  delight  to  the  rolling  rs.  "Alwaj^s  sound  your  rs 
whatever  you  do.  Ill  not  own  you  if  you  come  home 
sayin  'Ah  yoh  thahf  when  you  mean  'Are  you  there?' 
Do  you  mind  me,  now?" 

"Yes,  father." 

"Well,  be  heedin'  me,  then!  Now,  how  are  you  on  the 
h&.  Are  you  as  steady  on  them  as  you  were  when  you 
were  home  before?" 

Then  Henry  would  protest.  "But,  father,"  he  would 
say,  "they  don't  all  drop  their  /is.  It's  only  the  common 
ones  that  drop  them !  .  .  . 

"They're  all  common,  Henry  .  .  .  the  whole  lot,  common 
as  dirt ! ' '  Mr.  Quinn  retorted  once  to  that,  and  then  began 
to  tell  his  son  how  the  English  people  had  lost  the  habits 
and  instincts  of  gentlemen  in  the  eighteenth  century  .  .  . 
"where  Ireland  still  is,  my  son!"  .  .  .  and  had  become 
money-grubbers.  "The  English,"  he  said,  lying  back  in 
his  chair  and  delivering  his  sentences  as  if  he  were  a  mon- 
arch pronouncing  decrees,  "ceased  to  be  gentlemen  on  the 
day  that  Hargreaves  invented  the  spinnin '-jenny,  and  land- 
lords gave  way  to  mill-owners."  He  stopped  for  a  second 
or  two  and  then  continued  as  if  an  idea  had  only  just 
come  into  his  head.  "An'  it  was  proper  punishment  for 
Hargreaves,"  he  said,  "that  the  English  let  him  die  in  the 
workhouse.  Proper  punishment.  What  the  hell  did  he 
want  to  invent  the  thing  for?  .  .  ." 

Henry  looked  up,  startled  by  the  sudden  anger  that 


8  CHANGING  WINDS 

swept  over  his  father,  replacing  the  oracular  banter  with 
which  he  had  begun  his  discourse  on  the  decadence  of 
manners  in  England. 

"But,  father,"  he  said,  *'you.  aren't  against  machinery, 
are  you?" 

"Yes,  I  am,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied,  banging  the  arm  of  his 
chair  with  his  fist.  "I'd  smash  every  machine  in  the 
world,  if  I  were  in  authority." 

"That's  absurd,  father.  I  mean,  what  would  become  of 
progress?" 

Mr.  Quinn  leaped  out  of  his  chair  and  strode  up  and 
down  the  room.  "Progress!  Progress!"  he  exclaimed. 
"  D  'ye  think  machines  are  progress  ?  D  'ye  think  a  factory 
is  progress?  Some  of  you  young  chaps  think  you're  mak- 
in'  progress  when  you're  only  makin'  changes.  I  tell  you, 
Henry,  the  only  thing  that  is  capable  of  progression  is  the 
human  soul,  and  machines  can't  develop  that!"  He  came 
back  to  his  seat  as  he  said  this  and  sat  down,  but  he  did  not 
lie  back  as  he  had  done  before.  He  sat  forward,  gazing 
intently  at  his  son,  and  spoke  with  a  curious  passion  such 
as  Henry  had  never  heard  him  use  before.  "Look  here, 
Henry!"  he  said,  "there  was  a  girl  in  the  village  once 
called  Lizzie  McCamley  ...  a  fine  bit  of  a  girl,  too, 
big  and  strong,  an'  full  of  fun,  an'  she  got  tired  of  the 
village.  Her  father  was  a  labourer,  an'  all  she  could  see 
in  front  of  her  was  the  life  of  a  labourer's  wife.  Well,  it 
isn't  much  of  a  life,  that,  an'  Lizzie's  mother  had  a  poor 
life  even  for  a  labourer's  wife  because  McCamley  boozed. 
I  don't  blame  Lizzie  for  wantin'  somethin'  better  than 
that.  I'd  have  despised  her  if  she  hadn't  wanted  some- 
thin'  better.  But  what  did  she  do?  She  had  an  uncle  in 
Belfast  workin'  in  your  grandfather's  mill,  an'  she  came 
to  me  an'  she  asked  me  to  use  my  influence  with  your 
grandfather  to  get  her  a  job  in  the  mill.  An'  I  did.  An' 
by  God,  I'm  sorry  for  it!  I'll  rue  it  'til  my  dyin'  day,  I 
can  tell  you!" 

"But  why,  father?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  9 

"Your  grandfather  gave  her  a  job  in  the  weavin'  room 
of  his  mill.  Do  you  know  what  that's  like,  Henry?" 
Henry  shook  his  head.  He  had  never  been  inside  a  linen- 
mill.  "The  linen  has  to  be  woven  in  a  moist  atmosphere, 
or  else  it'd  become  brittle  an'  so  it  wouldn't  be  fine,"  Mr. 
Quinn  went  on;  "an'  the  atmosphere  is  kept  moist  by 
lettin'  steam  escape  from  pipes  into  the  room  where  the 
linen  is  bein'  woven — a  damp,  muggy,  steamy  atmosphere, 
Henry  ...  an'  Lizzie  McCamley  left  this  village  .  .  .  left 
work  in  the  fields  there  to  go  up  to  Belfast  an'  work  in  that 
for  ten  shillin's  a  week !  An'  that's  what  people  calls  prog- 
ress! I  wish  you  could  see  her  now — half  rotten  with 
disease,  her  that  was  the  healthiest  girl  in  the  place  before 
she  went  away.  She's  always  sick,  that  girl,  an'  she  can't 
eat  any  thin'  unless  her  appetite  is  stimulated  with  stuff 
like  pickles.  She's  angemic  an'  debilitated,  an'  the  last 
time  I  saw  her,  she'd  got  English  cholera.  .  .  .  She  mar- 
ried a  fellow  that  was  as  sick  as  herself,  an '  she  had  a  child 
that  wasn't  fit  to  be  born  ...  it  died,  thank  God!  .  .  . 
an'  then  she  went  back  to  her  work  an'  became  sicker. 
An'  she'll  go  on  like  that  'til  she  dies,  a  rotten,  worn-out 
woman,  the  mother  of  rotten  children  when  she  ought  to 
have  had  fine  healthy  brats,  an'  could  have  had  them  too, 
if  it  hadn't  been  for  this  damned  progress  we're  all 
makin ' ! " 

Henry  did  not  reply  to  his  father.  He  did  not  know 
what  to  reply.  His  mind  was  still  in  the  pliable  state,  and 
he  found  that  he  was  being  infected  by  his  father's  passion. 
But  he  had  been  taught  at  Rumpell's  to  believe  in  Inven- 
tion, in  Progress  by  the  Development  of  JNIachinery,  and  so 
his  mind  reeled  a  little  under  this  sudden  onslaught  on  his 
beliefs. 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Quinn.  "Is  that  your  notion  of  prog- 
ress, Henry?    Makin'  fine  linen  out  of  healthy  girls?" 

'  *  No,  father,  of  course  not.     Only !  .  .  . " 

Mr.  Quinn  stood  up,  and  caught  hold  of  his  son's  shoul- 
der.   "Come  over  to  the  window,  Henry!"  he  said,  and 


10  CHANGING  WINDS 

they  walked  across  the  room  together.  "Look  out  there," 
he  said,  pointing  towards  the  fields  that  stretched  to  the 
foot  of  the  hills.    ''That's  fine,  isn't  it?"  he  exclaimed. 

"It's  very  beautiful,  father,"  Henry  replied,  looking 
across  the  fields  of  corn  and  clover  and  the  pastures  where 
the  silken-sided  cattle  browsed  and  flocks  of  sheep  cropped 
the  short  grass. 

"It's  land,  Henry!"  said  Mr.  Quinn,  proudly.  "You 
can  do  without  machines  in  the  long  run,  but  you  can't  do 
without  that!" 

3 

"An'  what  do  you  think  a  mill-owner 'd  make  of  it, 
Henry?"  Mr.  Quinn  said  as  they  stood  there  gazing 
on  the  richness  of  the  earth.  Near  at  hand,  they  could 
hear  the  sound  of  a  lawn-mower,  leisurely  worked  by  Will- 
iam Henry  Matier,  and  while  they  waited  for  him  to  come 
into  view,  a  great  fat  thrush  flew  down  from  a  tree  and 
seized  a  snail  and  beat  it  against  a  stone  until  its  shell  was 
broken.  .  .  . 

"I  suppose  he'd  spoil  it,  father!"  Henry  answered. 

"Spoil  it!"  Mr.  Quinn  exclaimed.  "Damn  it,  Henry, 
he'd  desecrate  it!  He'd  tear  up  my  cornfields  and 
meadows  and  put  factories  and  mills  in  their  place! 
That's  what  he'd  do!"  He  turned  sideways  and  leant 
against  the  lintel  of  the  window  so  that  he  was  looking  at 
his  son.  "There  was  a  fellow  came  to  see  me  once,"  he 
said,  "from  London.  A  speculatin'  chap,  an'  he  wanted 
me  to  put  capital  into  a  scheme  he  had  on.  Do  you  know 
what  sort  of  a  scheme  it  was,  Henry?" 

"No,  father!" 

"He  wanted  to  develop  the  mineral  resources  of  the 
County  Wicklow,  an'  he  wanted  me  to  lend  him  money  to 
do  it.  He  said  that  some  Germans  had  surveyed  the  whole 
district,  an'  there  was  an  immense  fortune  just  waitin' 
to  be  torn  out  of  the  earth.  ...  I  could  hardly  keep 
my  feet  off  his  backside!    'Do  you  want  to  turn  Glenda- 


CHANGING  WINDS  11 

lough  into  a  place  like  Wigan?'  I  said  to  him.  'It's  all  in 
the  interests  of  progress,'  says  he.  .  .  .  No,  I  didn't  give 
him  any  of  my  money.  I  was  as  civil  to  him  as  I  could 
be,  an'  he  never  knew  how  near  he  was  to  his  death  that 
day " 

Mr.  Quinn's  anger  evaporated,  and  he  began  to  laugh 
to  himself  as  he  thought  of  the  difficulty  he  had  had  in 
restraining  his  rage  against  the  speculator  and  how  fright- 
ened that  person  would  have  been  had  he  known  how  angry 
he  had  made  him. 

"He  was  a  little  smooth  chap,"  he  said,  ''with  smooth 
hair  an'  smooth  clothes  an'  a  smooth  voice.  You  could 
hardly  tell  it  was  hair,  it  was  that  smooth.  You'd  nearly 
think  somebody  had  painted  it  on  his  skull.  He  couldn't 
make  me  out  when  I  said  I'd  rather  starve  than  let  a  half- 
penny of  my  money  be  used  to  make  a  mess  of  Glenda- 
lough,  an'  he  talked  about  the  necessity  of  havin'  a  broad 
outlook  on  the  world.  I  suppose  he  went  away  an'  told 
everybody  that  I  was  a  reactionary  an'  a  bad  landlord. 
Oh,  I  can  hear  him  spoutin'  away  about  me  ...  he 
got  into  parliament  soon  after  that,  an'  used  to  denounce 
landlords  an'  blether  away  about  progress.  An'  I  daresay 
everybody  that  listens  to  him  thinks  I'm  a  stupid  fellow, 
standin '  in  the  way  of  everything.  I  'm  a  landlord,  an '  so, 
of  course,  I'm  obsolete  and  tyrannical  an'  thick-headed, 
an'  all  that,  but  I  wouldn't  treat  one  of  my  labourers  the 
way  your  grandfather  treated  his  for  the  wide  world. 
Mind  you,  he  was  a  religious  man  ...  I  don't  mean 
that  he  pretended  to  be  religious  ...  he  really  was  re- 
ligious, after  a  fashion  .  .  .  wouldn't  have  missed  goin' 
to  church  or  sayin'  his  prayers  night  an'  mornin'  for  a 
mint  of  money  ...  an'  yet  there  didn't  seem  to  him  to 
be  anything  wrong  in  lettin'  men  an'  women  make  money 
for  him  in  that  .  .  .  that  disgustin'  way.  I  can't  under- 
stand that.     I  'm  damned  if  I  can  ! ' ' 

Something  stirred  uneasily  in  Henry's  mind.  He  be- 
came  acutely   conscious   of   the   principal   source   of  his 


12  CHANGING  WINDS 

father's  income,  and  he  remembered  things  that  had  been 
said  to  him  by  Gilbert  Farlow  at  Rumpell's.  Gilbert  Far- 
low  was  his  chief  friend  at  Rumpell's,  the  English  school 
to  which  he  had  been  sent  after  his  experience  at  Armagh, 
and  Gilbert  called  himself  an  hereditary  socialist  because 
his  father  had  been  a  socialist  before  him.  ("He  was  one 
of  the  first  members  of  the  Fabian  Society,"  Gilbert  used 
to  say  proudly.)  Gilbert  had  strong,  almost  violent,  views 
on  Personal  Responsibility  for  General  "Wrongs.  He  al- 
ways referred  to  rich  people  as  "oligarchs,"  or  "the  rot- 
ters who  live  on  rent  and  interest"  and  declared  that  it 
was  impossible  for  them  to  escape  from  the  responsibility 
for  the  social  chaos  by  asserting  that  they,  individually, 
had  kind  hearts  and  had  never  been  known  to  underpay 
or  overwork  any  one.  Remembering  Gilbert's  views, 
Henry  could  not  help  thinking  that  it  was  all  very  well  for 
his  father  to  denounce  the  mill  in  that  fashion,  but  after 
all  he  was  living  on  the  money  that  was  made  in  it.  .  .  . 

"But,  father,"  he  said,  hesitatingly,  "haven't  we  got 
grandfather's  money  now  .  .  .  and  the  mill!  ..." 

"No,  not  the  mill,  Henry.  Your  grandfather  turned 
that  into  a  limited  company,  an'  your  mother  sold  her 
shares  in  it.     I  told  her  to  sell  them ! ' ' 

Henry's  conscience  still  pricked  him.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  selling  the  shares  was  very  like  running  away  from 
the  responsibility. 

"But  all  the  same,"  he  said,  ** we've  got  money  that  was 
made  out  of  the  mill  by  grandfather  ..." 

"So  we  have,  Henry,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied  good-tem- 
peredly,  "an'  we're  makin'  a  better  use  of  it  than  he  did. 
Some  one's  got  to  use  it,  an'  I'm  doin'  the  best  I  can  with 
it.  You  've  only  got  to  look  at  my  land  to  see  how  well  I  've 
used  the  money.  It's  better  land  than  it  was  when  I  got 
it,  isn  't  it  ? "  Henry  nodded  his  head.  Even  he  knew  that 
much.  "I've  enriched  it  an'  drained  it  an'  improved  it 
in  ways  that'll  benefit  them  that  come  after  me  .  .  .  not 
me,  but  you  an'  your  children,  Henry  ...  an'  that's  a 


CHANGING  WINDS  IS 

good  use  to  make  of  it.  I've  planted  trees  that  I'll  never 
reap  a  ha'penny  from,  an'  I've  spent  money  on  experi- 
ments that  did  me  no  good  but  helped  to  increase  knowl- 
edge about  land.  Look  at  the  labourers'  cottages  I've 
built,  an'  the  plots  of  land  I've  given  them.  Aren't  they 
good  ?  Didn  't  I  put  up  the  best  part  of  the  money  to  build 
the  new  school  because  the  old  one  was  lettin'  in  the  wind 
an'  rain?" 

Henry's  knowledge  of  sociology  was  not  sufficient  to 
enable  him  to  cope  with  these  arguments  .  .  .  there  was 
no  Gilbert  Farlow  at  his  elbow  to  prompt  him  .  .  .  and 
so  he  collapsed. 

' '  I  suppose  you  're  right,  father, ' '  he  said. 

"Suppose  I'm  right,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied.  "Of  course 
I'm  right!" 

"I  know  well,"  he  continued  after  he  had  fumed  for  a 
few  moments,  "there's  people  .  .  .  socialists  an'  radicals 
an'  people  like  that  .  .  .  makes  out  that  landlords  are  the 
curse  of  the  world.  They  think  we're  nothin'  in  compari- 
son with  mill-owners  an'  that  sort,  but  I  tell  you,  Henry, 
whatever  we  are  an'  whatever  we  were,  we're  better  than 
the  people  that  have  taken  our  place.  We  didn't  tear  up 
the  earth  an'  cover  it  with  slag-heaps  or  turn  good  rivers 
into  stinkin'  sewers.  "We  didn't  pollute  the  rivers  with 
filth  an'  poison  the  fish!"  He  turned  suddenly  to  Henry 
and  said  in  a  quieter  tone,  ''You've  never  seen  Wigan, 
have  you,  Henry?" 

"No,  father." 

"Well,  you'd  think  by  the  look  of  it,  it  was  made  on  the 
seventh  day  .  .  .  when  God  rested.  Landlords  didn't  do 
that,  Henry,  or  anything  as  bad  as  that.  It  was  mill- 
owners  that  did  it.  Oh,  I  know  well  enough  that  land- 
lords were  not  all  they  ought  to  have  been,  but  I  'm  certain 
of  this,  that  labourers  on  the  land  were  healthier  under 
landlords  than  they  are  under  mill-owners,  and  even  if  we 
weren't  as  good  to  the  labourers  as  we  might  have  been, 
at  least  we  had  respect  for  God's  world,  an'  I  never  met  a 


14  CHANGING  WINDS 

mill-owner  yet  that  had  respect  for  anything  but  a  bank- 
book. I've  been  in  Lancashire  an'  I've  listened  to  these 
mill-owners  ...  I've  listened  to  them  talkin',  an'  I've 
listened  to  them  eatin'  an'  drinkin'  ...  an'  they  talked 
'brass'  an'  they  thought  'brass,'  an'  I'm  damned  if  they 
didn't  drink 'brass.'  That's  characteristic  of  them.  They 
call  money  'brass.'  Brass!  Do  you  think  they  care  for 
the  fine  look  of  things  or  an  old  house  or  a  picture  or  books 
or  anything  that's  decent?  No,  Henry  ...  all  they  care 
for  is  'brass,'  an'  that's  what's  the  matter  with  the  English 
.  .  .  they  think  too  much  about  money  .  .  .  easy  money 
...  an'  they  think  so  much  about  gettin'  it  that  none  of 
them  have  any  time  to  think  of  how  they'll  spend  it  when 
they  do  get  it.  An'  they  just  fool  it  away!  Eat  it  away, 
drink  it  away!  An'  then  they  have  to  go  to  Buxton  an' 
Matlock  an'  Harrogate  to  sweat  the  muck  out  of  their 
blood!" 

Henry  reminded  his  father  of  the  bloods  and  bucks  and 
macaronis  of  the  eighteenth  century  .  .  .  the  last  of  the 
English  gentlemen. 

"After  all,  father,  they  weren't  so  very  much  better 
than  the  lot  you're  denouncing!" 

"Yes,  they  were.  They  had  the  tradition  of  gentlemen 
behind  them.  They  were  drunkards  and  gamblers  and 
women-hunters  an'  Lord  knows  what  not,  but  behind  it  all, 
Henry,  they  had  the  tradition  of  gentlemen,  an'  that  saved 
them  from  things  that  a  mill-owner  does  as  a  matter  of 
course.  An'  anyway,  their  theory  was  right.  They 
thought  more  of  spendin'  money  than  of  makin'  it,  an' 
that  was  right.  It  isn't  makin'  money  that  matters  .  .  . 
any  fool  can  do  that  ...  it's  spendin'  money  that  matters. 
You  're  less  likely  to  make  a  mess  of  the  world  when  you  're 
spendin',  than  when  you're  makin',  money,  an'  the  Eng- 
lish'11  find  that  out  yet.  God '11  not  forget  in  a  hurry  the 
way  they  tore  up  their  good  land  an'  made  dirty,  stinkin' 
towns  out  of  it,  an'  by  the  Holy  0,  He'll  make  them  suffer 
for  it.    If  I  was  an  Englishman,  I  wouldn't  want  any  one 


CHANGING  WINDS  15 

to  see  places  like  Wigan  an'  the  towns  where  they  dig  coal 
an'  make  pottery  ...  I'd  ...  I'd  be  ashamed  to  look 
God  in  the  face  when,  I  had  mind  of  them.  ..." 


Late  that  night,  long  after  Henry  had  gone  to  bed,  Mr. 
Quinn  came  to  his  room  and  wakened  him. 

*  *  What  is  it,  father  ? ' '  Henry  said,  starting  up  in  alarm. 

"It's  all  right,  son,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied.  "I'm  sorry 
I  startled  you.  I've  been  thinkin'  over  what  I  said  to  you 
this  afternoon  .  .  .  about  machinery.  You're  not  to  take 
me  too  seriously." 

Henry,  his  eyes  still  full  of  sleep,  blinked  uncompre- 
hendingly  at  his  father. 

"I  mean,  son,"  Mr.  Quinn  went  on,  "that  it'd  be  silly 
to  break  up  every  machine  in  the  world.  Of  course,  it 
would!  You  must  have  thought  I  was  daft  talkin'  like 
that.  What  I  mean  is,  I  'd  smash  up  all  the  machines  that 
make  a  mess  of  men  an'  women.  That's  all.  I'm  sorry  I 
disturbed  you,  Henry,  but  I  couldn't  bear  to  think  of  you 
lyin'  here  mebbe  thinkin'  I  was  talkin'  out  of  the  back  of 
my  neck.  I'm  not  very  ckver,  son  ...  I've  a  moidhered 
sort  of  a  mind  .  .  .  an'  I  say  things  sometimes  that  aren't 
what  I  mean  at  all.  You  must  be  tired  out,  Henry.  Good- 
night to  you ! ' ' 

"Good-night,  father!" 

Mr.  Quinn  walked  towards  the  door  of  the  room,  shading 
the  light  of  the  candle  from  the  draught,  but  before  he  had 
reached  it,  Henry  called  to  him. 

"Father,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  Henry,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied,  turning  to  look  at 
his  son. 

"You're  a  Socialist!" 

"No,  I'm  not.  I'm  a  Conservative,"  said  Mr.  Quinn, 
and  then  he  went  out  of  the  room,  closing  the  door  quietly 
behind  him. 


16  CHANGING  WINDS 


Many  things  troubled  Mr.  Quinn,  but  the  thing  that 
troubled  him  most  was  his  son's  nervousness.  Henry, 
when  he  was  a  child,  would  cry  with  fright  during  a 
thunderstorm,  and  he  never  in  after  life  quite  lost  the 
sense  of  apprehension  when  the  clouds  blackened.  He 
loved  horses,  but  he  could  not  sit  on  a  horse 's  back  without 
being  haunted  by  the  fear  that  the  animal  would  run  away 
or  that  he  would  be  thrown  from  his  seat.  He  could  swim 
fairly  well,  but  he  was  afraid  to  dive,  and  he  never  swam 
far  out  of  his  depth  without  a  sensation  of  alarm  that  he 
would  not  be  able  to  return  in  safety. 

"Your  mother  was  like  that,"  Mr.  Quinn  said  to  him 
once.  "She  never  was  in  a  theatre  in  her  life,  'til  I  mar- 
ried her.  Her  father  was  too  religious  to  let  her  go  to 
such  a  place,  an'  I  had  the  great  job  to  persuade  her  to  go 
with  me.  I  took  her  to  see  Henry  Irving  in  Belfast  once, 
an'  all  the  time  she  kept  whisperin'  to  me,  'Suppose  I  was 
to  die  now,  where 'd  I  wake  up?'  That's  a  fact,  Henry! 
Your  mother  was  terribly  frightened  of  hell.  An'  even 
when  she  got  over  that,  she  was  always  wonderin'  if  it  was 
safe  to  go  to  a  theatre.  She'd  imagine  the  place  was  sure 
to  go  on  fire,  an'  then  she'd  be  burned  alive  or  get  crushed 
to  death  or  somethin*  like  that.  I  nearly  felt  scared  my- 
self, the  way  she  went  on !  I  wish  you  weren't  so  nervous, 
Henry!" 

They  were  at  Cushendall  when  Mr.  Quinn  said  this. 
They  had  ridden  over  on  bicycles  intent  on  a  day's  picnic 
by  the  sea,  and  soon  after  they  had  arrived,  Mr.  Quinn 
itched  to  be  in  the  water.  They  had  stripped  on  the  beach, 
and  clambered  over  the  rocks  to  a  place  where  a  deep,  broad 
pool  was  separated  from  the  Irish  Sea  by  a  thick  wedge 
of  rock,  covered  by  long,  yellow  sea-weed.  There  was  a 
swell  on  the  sea,  and  so  Mr.  Quinn  decided  to  swim  in  the 
pool.  "This  is  a  good  place  for  a  dive,"  he  said,  standing 
on  the  edge  of  the  flat  rock  and  looking  down  into  the  deep 


CHANGING  WINDS  17 

pool,  and  then  he  put  his  hands  above  his  head  and,  bending 
forward,  dived  down  into  the  water  so  finely  that  there 
was  hardly  any  splash.  lie  came  up,  puffing  and  blowing, 
shaking  the  water  from  his  eyes  and  hair,  and  swam  up 
and  down  the  pool,  now  on  his  back,  now  on  his  side,  and 
then  suddenly  with  a  shout  he  would  curl  himself  up  and 
dive  and  swim  beneath  the  water,  and  again  come  up,  red 
and  shiny  and  puffing  and  blowing  and  shouting,  *'Aw, 
that's  grand!  Aw,  that's  grand!"  He  could  stand  on 
his  hands  in  the  water  and  turn  somersaults  and  find  pen- 
nies on  the  sandy  bottom.  He  loved  all  sport,  but  the 
sport  that  he  loved  best  was  swimming.  He  liked  to  sit 
on  a  rock  and  let  great  waves  come  and  hit  him  hearty 
thumps  in  the  back.  He  liked  to  bury  his  face  in  the  water. 
He  liked  the  feel  of  the  water  on  his  body.  He  liked  to 
stand  up  in  the  sunshine  and  watch  the  drops  of  water 
glistening  on  his  body.  He  liked  to  lie  on  the  sea-weed 
or  the  sand  after  his  swim  and  let  the  sun  dry  him.  **It's 
great  health,  this!"  he  would  say,  kicking  and  splashing 
in  the  sea. 

' '  Come  on, ' '  he  shouted  to  Henry,  after  he  had  dived. 

Henry  was  sitting  on  the  sea-weed,  with  his  arms 
clutched  tightly  round  his  shins,  shivering  a  little  in  the 
wind. 

"You'll  catch  your  death  of  cold  if  you  sit  there  instead 
of  jumpin'  in,"  his  father  called  to  him.  "Dive,  man! 
That's  a  grand  place!" 

Henry  stood  up  .  .  .  and  then  turned  away  from  the 
rock.  He  caught  hold  of  the  sea-weed  and  slowly  lowered 
himself  into  the  water. 

"That  wasn't  much  of  a  dive,"  his  father  said,  swim- 
ming up  to  him. 

Henry  did  not  answer.  He  swam  across  the  pool  and 
clambered  out  on  the  other  side  and  waited  for  his  father, 
who  followed  after  him. 

"I  wish  you  weren't  so  nervous,"  Mr.  Quinn  said  a 
second  time,  as  he  sat  down  on  the  sea-weed  beside  his  son. 


18  CHANGING  WINDS 

"So  do  I,  father,"  Henry  replied,  "but  I  can't  help  it 
I  try  to  make  myself  not  feel  afraid,  but  I  just  can't.  If  I 
could  only  not  think  about  it !  .  .  . " 

"Aye,  that's  it,  Henry,  You  think  too  much.  Do  you 
mind  that  bit  in  Shakespeare  about  people  that  think  bein' 
dangerous.  Begod,  that's  true!  Thin  men  think,  that's 
what  Shakespeare  says,  an'  he's  right,  though  I've  known 
fat  men  to  think,  too,  but  anyway  thin  men  aren  't  near  the 
swimmers  that  fat  men  are.  Well,  I  suppose  it's  no  use 
complainin'.  You  can't  help  thinkin'  if  you  have  that 
kind  of  a  mind  .  .  .  only  I  wish  it  didn't  make  a  coward 
of  you!" 

A  twist  of  pain  passed  over  the  boy's  face  when  his 
father  said  ' '  Coward, ' '  and  instantly  Mr.  Quinn  was  sorry. 

"I  didn't  mean  that  exactly,"  he  said  very  quickly, 
putting  out  his  hand  and  touching  Henry 's  bare  back.  ' '  I 
didn't  mean  coward,  Henry.  I  know  you're  not  that  sort 
at  all.    It 's  just  nervousness,  that 's  what  it  is ! " 

He  scrambled  to  his  feet  as  he  spoke,  and  stood  for  a 
moment  or  two,  slipping  about  on  the  wet  sea-weed.  He 
slapped  his  big,  hairy  chest  with  his  hands,  and  then  he 
swung  his  arms  over  his  head  in  order  to  send  the  blood 
circulating  more  rapidly  through  his  veins. 

"I  wish  I  were  as  big  and  strong  as  you  are,  father!" 
said  Henry,  gazing  at  his  father's  muscular  frame, 

"You're  a  greedy  young  rascal,"  his  father  answered, 
"Sure,  haven't  you  more  brains  in  your  wee  finger  than  I 
have  in  my  whole  body,  an'  what  more  do  you  want?  It 
would  be  a  poor  thing  if  your  father  hadn't  got  something 
you  haven't.  Come  on,  now,  an'  I'll  swim  you  a  race  to 
the  end  of  the  pool  an'  back,  an'  then  we  must  go  home." 

He  plunged  into  the  water  and  swam  about,  making  a 
great  noise  and  splash,  and  deliberately  looking  away  from 
his  son.  He  was  giving  him  an  opportunity  to  slip  into 
the  water  without  being  seen  to  shrink  from  the  dive. 

"Are  you  comin',  Henry?"  he  asked,  without  looking 
back. 


CHANGING  WINDS  19 

"Yes,  father,"  the  boy  replied,  standing  up  and  looking 
fearfully  into  the  water.  He  lifted  his  hands  above  his 
head  and  drew  in  his  breath.  He  moved  forward,  half 
shutting  his  eyes,  and  poised  himself  on  the  edge  of  the 
rock,  ready  for  the  plunge.  Then  he  put  his  hands  down 
again  and  lowering  himself  on  to  the  sea-weed,  slipped 
sldwly  into  the  water  and  struck  out.  "I'm  coming, 
father!"  he  said. 

"That's  right,  my  son,  that's  right!"  Mr.  Quinn  replied, 
looking  round. 


He  did  not  speak  of  Henry's  nervousness  again,  but  it 
troubled  him  none  the  less.  He  himself  was  so  fearless, 
so  careless  of  danger,  so  eager  for  adventure  that  he  could 
not  understand  his  son's  shrinking  from  peril. 

"I  used  to  think,"  he  said  to  himself  one  day,  "that 
boys  took  their  physique  from  their  mothers  an'  their 
brains  from  their  fathers,  but  it  doesn't  seem  to  have 
worked  out  like  that  with  Henry,  He  doesn't  seem  to 
have  got  anything  from  me.  ...  It's  a  rum  business, 
whatever  way  you  look  at  it," 


THE  SECOND  CHAPTER 


Mr.  Quinn's  horror  of  the  English  people  was  neither 
consistent  nor  rigid.  When  the  Armagh  schoolmaster  was 
found  wanting,  Mr.  Quinn  instantly  decided  to  send  Henry 
to  Rumpell's,  a  famous  English  school,  and  here  Henry 
soon  made  friends  of  Ninian  Graham  and  Roger  Carey  and 
Gilbert  Farlow.  Gilbert  Farlow  was  the  friend  for  whom 
he  cared  most,  but  his  affection  for  Ninian  Graham  and 
Roger  Carey  was  very  strong.  Henry's  soft  nature  was 
naturally  aifectionate,  but  there  had  been  little  opportunity 
in  his  life  for  a  display  of  affection.  His  mother  was  not 
even  a  memory  to  him,  for  she  had  died  while  he  was  still 
a  baby.  Old  Cassie  Arnott  had  nursed  him,  but  Cassie, 
at  an  age  when  it  seemed  impossible  for  her  to  feel  any 
emotion  for  men,  had  suddenly  married  and  had  gone  off 
to  Belfast.  His  memory  of  her  speedily  faded.  Cassie 
was  succeeded  by  Matilda  TurnbuU,  who  drank,  and  was 
dismissed  by  Mr.  Quinn  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight;  and 
then  came  Bridget  Fallon.  .  .  .  Bridget  had  the  longest 
hold  on  his  memory,  but  she,  too,  disappeared  and  was 
seen  no  more;  for  Mr.  Quinn  came  on  her  suddenly  one 
day  and  found  her  teaching  "Master  Henry"  to  say 
prayers  to  the  Virgin  Mary!  She  had  put  a  scapular 
about  his  neck  and  had  taught  him  to  make  the  sign  of  the 
cross.  .  .  . 

"Take  that  damned  rag  off  my  child's  neck,"  Mr.  Quinn 
had  roared  at  her,  "an'  take  yourself  off  as  soon  as  you 
can  pack  your  box ! ' ' 

And  Bridget,  poor,  kindly,  devout,  gentle  Bridget,  was 
sent  weeping  away. 

20 


CHANGING  WINDS  21 

Long  afterwards,  Henry  had  talked  to  his  father  about 
Bridget,  and  Mr,  Quinn  had  expressed  regret  for  what  he 
had  said  about  the  scapular.  "I  had  no  call  to  say  it  was 
a  damned  rag,"  he  said,  ''though  that's  all  it  was.  It 
meant  a  lot  to  her,  of  course,  an'  I  suppose  she  was  right 
to  try  an'  make  a  Catholic  of  you.  But  I'd  hate  to  have 
a  son  of  mine  a  Catholic,  Henry.  It's  an  unmanly  re- 
ligion, only  fit  for  women  an'  .  .  .  an'  actors!  It's  not 
religion  at  all  .  .  .  it's  funk,  Henry,  that's  what  it  is!  I 
read  'The  Garden  of  the  Soul'  one  time,  an'  I'd  be 
ashamed  to  pray  the  way  that  book  goes  on,  with  their 
'Jesus,  Mercy!'  'Mother  of  God,  pity  me!'  'Holy 
Saints,  intercede  for  me!'  Catholics  don't  pray,  Henry; 
they  whine;  and  I've  no  use  for  whinin'.  If  I  can't  go 
to  heaven  like  a  man,  I'll  go  to  hell  like  one.  Anyway,  if  I 
commit  a  sin,  I  '11  not  whine  about  it,  an '  if  God  says  to  me 
on  the  last  day,  'Did  you  commit  this  sin  or  that  sin?' 
I'll  answer  Him  to  His  face  an'  say,  'Yes,  God,  I  did,  an' 
if  You'd  been  a  man.  You'd  have  done  the  same 
Yourself!'  " 

So  it  was  that,  in  his  childhood,  no  woman  made  a  last- 
ing impression  on  Henry's  affectionate  nature.  No  one, 
indeed,  filled  his  affections  except  his  father.  Henry 's  love 
for  his  father  was  unfathomable.  Their  natures  were  so 
dissimilar  that  they  never  clashed.  There  were  things 
about  Henry,  his  nervousness,  his  sudden  accessions  of 
fright,  which  puzzled  Mr.  Quinn,  and  might,  had  he  been 
a  smaller  man  than  he  was,  have  made  him  angry  with  the 
boy,  contemptuous  of  him;  but  when  Mr,  Quinn  came 
across  some  part  of  Henry's  nature  which  was  incompre- 
hensible to  him,  he  tried  first,  to  understand  and  then,  fail- 
ing that,  to  be  tolerant.  "We  all  have  our  natures,"  he 
used  to  say  to  himself,  "an'  it's  no  use  complainin'  because 
people  are  different.  Sure,  that's  what  makes  them  inter- 
estin'  anyvay!" 


itSt  CHANGING  WINDS 


But  Henry's  affection  for  Gilbert  Farlow  and  Ninian 
Graham  and  Roger  Carey  was  a  new  affection,  a  thing  that 
came  spontaneously  to  him.  There  were  other  boys  at 
Rumpell's  whom  he  liked  and  others  for  whom  he  felt 
neither  like  nor  dislike,  but  just  the  ordinary  tolerance  of 
temporary  encounters  and  passing  life;  and  there  were  a 
few  for  whom  he  felt  a  hatred  so  venomous  that  it  some- 
times frightened  him.  There  was  Cobain,  a  brutal,  thick- 
jawed  fellow  who  thumped  small  boys  whenever  they  came 
near  him,  and  there  was  MuUally!  ...  He  could  not  de- 
scribe his  feeling  for  Mullally !  It  was  so  strong  that  he 
could  not  sit  still  in  the  same  room  with  him,  could  not 
speak  civilly  to  him.  And  yet  Mullally  was  civil  enough  to 
him,  was  anxious  even  to  be  friendly  with  him.  There  was 
something  of  a  flabby  sort  in  Mullally 's  nature  that  made 
Henry  instinctively  angry  with  him:  his  vague  features, 
his  weak,  wandering  eyes,  peering  from  behind  large 
glasses,  his  tow-coloured  hair  that  seemed  to  have  ' '  washed- 
out,"  and  above  all,  his  squeaky  voice  that  piped  on  one 
jerky  note.  .  .  . 

It  was  Gilbert  Farlow  who  gave  IMullally  his  nick-name. 
(It  was  the  time  of  the  Boer  War,  and  the  nick-name  came 
easily  enough.)  "He  isn't  a  man,"  said  Gilbert;  "he's 
a  regrettable  incident!" 

Gilbert  Farlow,  though  he  was  the  youngest  and  the 
slightest  of  the  four  boys,  was  the  leader  of  them.  He  had 
the  gift  of  vivid  language.  He  could  cut  a  man  with  a 
name  as  sharply  as  if  it  were  a  knife.  He  invented  new 
oaths  for  the  delight  of  Ninian  Graham,  who  had  a  taste 
for  strong  language  but  no  genius  in  developing  it.  It  was 
he  who  appointed  Roger  to  the  office  of  Purse-Bearer  be- 
cause Roger  was  careful.  It  was  he  who  decided  that  their 
pocket-money,  with  small  exceptions,  should  be.  spent  con- 
jointly, and  that  no  money  should  be  spent  unless  three  out 


CHANGING  WINDS  28 

of  four  consented  to  the  expenditure.  ("Damn  it,  is  it  my 
money  or  is  it  not?"  said  Ninian  when  the  rule  was  pro- 
posed, and  ''Fined  sixpence  for  cheek!"  Gilbert  replied, 
ordering  Roger  to  collect  the  sixpence  which  was  then  di- 
vided between  the  three  who  had  not  murmured.)  It  was 
he  who  declared  that  ' '  Henry ' '  was  too  long  and  ' '  Quinn, ' ' 
too  short  (though  Roger  said  the  words  were  exactly  the 
same  length)  and  insisted  on  calling  Henry  "Quinny" 
(which  Roger  said  was  actually  longer  than  either  of  the 
displaced  words.  "Well,  it  sounds  shorter,"  said  Gilbert 
decisively). 

Gilbert  planned  their  lives  for  them,  "We'll  all  go  to 
Cambridge,"  he  said,  "and  then  we'll  become  Great!" 

"Righto!"  said  Ninian. 

"If  any  of  our  people  propose  to  send  us  to  Oxford, 
there's  to  be  a  row!  Sloppy  asses  go  to  Oxford  .  .  .  fel- 
lows like  Mullally!"  Henry  made  a  terrible  grimace  at 
the  mention  of  Mullally 's  name  and  Gilbert,  swift  to  notice 
the  grimace,  pointed  the  moral,  "Well,  Quinny,  if  your 
guv 'nor  tries  to  send  you  to  Oxford,  don't  let  him.  Re- 
member Mullally,  the  .  .  .  the  boiled  worm!"  he  contin- 
ued, "an'  say  you  won't  go !" 

"But  my  father  was  at  Oxford,"  said  Roger  quietly. 

"Your  father  was  a  parson  and  didn't  know  any  better," 
Gilbert  replied.  "And  that  reminds  me,  if  one  of  us  be- 
comes a  parson,  the  rest  of  us  give  him  the  chuck.  Is  that 
agreed  1 ' ' 

Ninian  held  up  both  his  hands.  "Carried  unanimous!" 
he  said. 

"I  don't  know!"  Henry  objected.  "I  used  to  think 
it'd  be  rather  nice  to  be  a  parson  .  .  .  standing  in  the  pul- 
pit in  a  surplice  and  talking  like  that  to  people ! ' ' 

Gilbert  got  up  from  the  grass  where  they  were  sitting. 
"He'll  have  to  be  scragged,"  he  said. 

"Righto!"  said  Ninian,  and  the  three  of  them  seized 
Henry  and  flung  him  to  the  ground  and  sat  on  him  until  he 


je4  CHANGING  WINDS 

swore  by  the  blood  of  his  forefathers  that  he  would  never, 
never  consent  to  be  a  clergyman.  "Or  give  pi- jaws  of 
any  sort!"  said  Gilbert. 

** Lemma  go!"  Henry  squeaked,  struggling  to  throw 
them  off  his  back. 

"When  you've  promised!  ..." 

"Oh,  all  right,  then!" 

They  released  him  and  he  stood  up  and  straightened  his 
clothes  and  searched  his  mind  for  something  of  a  devastat- 
ing character  to  say.  "Funny  ass!"  he  said  at  last,  and 
then  they  scragged  him  again  for  being  cheeky. 

But  he  would  have  submitted  to  any  amount  of  scrag- 
ging from  them  because  they  were  his  friends  and  because 
he  loved  Gilbert  and  because  they,  too,  in  their  turn  sub- 
mitted to  being  scragged. 


When  Henry  had  been  at  Rumpell's  for  a  year,  Ninian 
Graham  asked  him  to  spend  the  Easter  holidays  at  his 
home  in  Devonshire.  "I'll  get  my  mater  to  write  and  ask 
you,"  he  said.  Henry  hesitated.  He  had  never  spent  a 
holiday  away  from  home,  and  he  knew  that  his  father  liked 
him  to  return  to  Ireland  whenever  he  had  the  chance  to  do 
so.  He  himself  enjoyed  going  home,  but  suddenly,  when 
Henry  had  finished  speaking,  he  felt  a  strong  desire  to 
accept  this  invitation.  "I'll  have  to  ask  my  father,"  he 
replied,  and  added,  "I'd  like  to,  Ninian.  Thanks  aw- 
f'lly!" 

He  had  heard  his  father  speak  so  contemptuously  of 
English  people  that  he  was  almost  afraid  to  ask  him  for 
permission  to  accept  Ninian 's  invitation.  He  wondered 
how  he  would  explain  his  father's  refusal  to  Ninian  who 
was  so  kind.  .  .  .  But  his  fears  were  not  warranted,  for 
Mr.  Quinn  replied  to  his  letter,  urging  him  to  accept  the 
invitation. 

"Enjoy  yourself,"  he  wrote.    ''The  English  are  very  hos- 


CHANGING  WINDS  26 

pitahle  when  you  get  to  know  them,  and  the  only  way  you 
can  get  to  know  them  is  to  go  and  live  in  their  homes! 
But  I'll  expect  you  to  come  here  in  the  summer.  You  can 
bring  your  friends  with  you,  the  whole  lot.  William 
Henry  says  there'll  he  a  grand  lot  of  strawberries  and 
goosegogs  this  year  and  you  can  all  make  yourselves  as 
sick  as  you  like  on  them."  He  signed  himself,  "Your  af- 
fectionate Father,  Henry  Quinn." 

And  so  Henry  had  gone  that  Easter  to  Boveyhayne, 
where  Mrs.  Graham  and  her  daughter  Mary  lived.  Ninian 
and  he  had  travelled  by  train  to  Whitcombe  where  they 
were  met  by  old  Widger  and  driven  over  hilly  country  to 
Boveyhayne.  There  was  a  long  climb  out  of  Whitcombe 
and  then  a  long  descent  into  Boveyhayne,  after  which  the 
road  ran  on  the  level  to  the  end  of  Hayne  lane  which  led 
to  the  Manor.  Before  they  reached  the  end  of  the  lane. 
Old  Widger  turned  to  them  and,  pointing  with  his  whip 
in  front  of  him,  said,  laughingly,  "Here  be  Miss  Mary 
waitin'  for  'ee,  Mas'er  Ninyan!" 

Ninian  stood  up  in  the  carriage  and  looked  ahead. 
"Hilloa,  Mary!"  he  shouted,  waving  his  hand,  and  then, 
before  Old  Widger  had  time  to  pull  up,  he  jumped  into 
the  road  and  ran  on  ahead.  ''Come  on,  Quinny!"  he 
shouted,  and  Henry,  suddenly  shy,  got  out  of  the  carriage 
and  followed  after  him. 

"You  needn't  wait  for  us,  Widger!"  Ninian  shouted 
again.     * '  We  '11  walk  home ! ' ' 

And  Widger,  smiling  largely,  drove  on. 


Mary  Graham  was  younger  than  Ninian,  nearly  two 
years  younger,  and  very  different  from  him.  He  was  big 
in  body  and  bone,  and  fair  and  very  hearty  in  his  manner. 
When  Ninian  approved  of  you  he  did  not  pat  your  back: 
he  punched  it  so  that  your  bones  rattled  and  your  flesh 
tingled.    All  his  movements  were  large,  splashy,  as  Gil- 


26  CHANGING  WINDS 

bert  said,  aud  his  voice  was  incapable  of  whispers.  But 
Mary  was  slight  and  small  and  dark  and  her  laugh  was 
like  the  sound  of  a  little  silver  bell.  She  was  standing  on 
an  earth  mound  at  the  entrance  to  the  lane  when  Henry- 
came  up  to  Ninian  and  her,  and  he  wondered  to  himself 
how  her  small,  shapely  head  could  bear  the  weight  of  the 
long  dark  hair  which  fell  about  her  shoulders  in  a  thick, 
flowing  pile.  Ninian  was  chattering  to  her  so  loudly  and 
so  rapidly  that  Henry  could  hardly  hear  her  replies.  .  .  . 

"Oh,  this  is  Quinny !"  Ninian  said,  jerking  his  thumb  in 
Henry's  direction.  "His  real  name  is  Quinn,  Henry 
Quinn,  but  we  call  him  'Quinny.'  At  least,  Gilbert  does, 
so,  of  course  we  do  too.  And  he's  Irish,  but  he  isn't  a 
Catholic,  and  he  says  Irish  people  don't  keep  pigs  in  their 
houses,  and  they  eat  other  things  besides  potatoes  and  .  .  . 
come  on,  Quinny,  buck  up  and  be  civil ! ' ' 

Mary  stepped  down  from  the  mound,  and  held  out  her 
hand  to  Henry.  "How  do  you  do!"  she  said,  smiling  at 
him,  and  he  took  her  hand  and  said  he  was  very  well  and 
asked  her  how  she  did,  and  she  said  she  was  very  well, 
and  then  she  smiled  again,  and  so  Henry  smiled  too. 

Ninian  had  moved  on  up  the  lane.  "Buck  up,  you 
two ! "  he  said.  "  I  'm  hungry ! "  He  started  to  run,  think- 
ing of  tea,  and  then  he  suddenly  checked  himself  and  came 
back.  "I  say,  Mary,"  he  said,  " Quinny 's  fearfully  gone 
on  wildflowers  and  birds  and  .  .  .  and  Nature  .  .  .  and 
that  sort  of  stuff.  Show  him  the  primroses  and  things, 
will  you?  I've  got  an  awful  hunger  and  I  want  to  see  the 
mater.  Oh,  Quinny,  these  are  primroses,  these  yellow 
things,  and  Mary '11  show  you  anything  else  you  want  to 
see.  There's  a  jolly  lot  of  honeysuckle  and  hazelnuts  in 
these  hedges  later  on.  So  long!"  He  went  off  again,  run- 
ning in  a  heavy,  lumbering  fashion  because  of  the  ascent 
and  the  broken,  stony  ground. 

Henry  stood  still,  waiting  for  Mary  to  make  a  decision. 
He  could  not  think  of  anything  to  say  and  so  he  just 
smiled.    He  began  to  feel  hot  and  uncomfortable,  and  it 


CHANGING  WINDS  87 

seemed  to  him  suddenly  that  INIary  must  think  he  was 
a  frightful  fool,  maundering  about  primroses  and  wild  vio- 
lets and  bluebells,  and  yet  not  able  to  say  a  word  for  him- 
self in  her  presence  .  .  .  standing  there,  grinning  like  .  .  . 
like  anything,  and  .  .  .  and  not  saying  a  word. 

She  was  standing  sideways,  with  her  head  turned  to  look 
at  her  brother,  now  disappearing  round  a  bend  in  the  lane, 
and  Henry  was  able  to  observe  her  more  closely.  He  saw 
that  she  was  wearing  a  short  frock,  reaching  to  her  knees, 
and  he  plucked  up  heart.  "She's  only  a  kid,"  he  said  to 
himself,  and  then  said  aloud  to  her,  "It's  awf'lly  nice 
here!" 

She  turned  towards  him  as  he  spoke  and  he  saw  that  her 
face  was  still  smiling.  "Yes,  isn't  it?"  she  answered. 
"Shall  we  go  on  now,  or  would  you  like  to  gather  some 
primroses.  There  are  lots  in  this  lane,  or  if  you  like  to 
walk  up  to  the  copse,  there  are  more  there,  and  we  can 
mix  them  with  bluebells.  I  think  primroses  and  bluebells 
are  lovely  together,  don 't  you  ? ' ' 

He  thought  it  would  be  nicer  to  go  to  the  copse,  and  so 
they  moved  on  up  the  lane, 

"I  like  these  high  hedges,"  he  said.  "We  don't  have 
high  hedges  in  Ireland.  In  lots  of  places  we  don't  have 
hedges  at  all — only  stone  walls ! ' ' 

Mary  made  a  grimace.  "I  shouldn't  like  that,"  she  ex- 
claimed. "I  love  hedges  .  .  .  best  in  the  spring  because 
then  they're  new.  There's  always  something  living  in 
them.  I  never  go  by  the  hedges  without  hearing  some- 
thing moving  inside  .  .  .  birds  and  mice  and  things.  Of 
course,  it's  very  stuffy  in  the  lanes  in  summer  because  the 
hedges  are  so  high  and  the  leaves  are  so  thick  and  the  air 
can't  get  through!  .  .  .  Look!  Look!"  She  climbed  on 
to  the  bars  of  a  gate,  and  pointed,  and  he  climbed  on  to 
the  bars  beside  her,  and  saw  the  English  Channel,  shining 
like  a  sheet  of  silver  in  the  setting  sun. 

"Can  you  see  the  trawlers  coming  home?"  she  said. 
"Out  there!    Do  you  see?     Those  are  our  boats  .  .  .  the 


28  CHANGING  WINDS 

Boveyhayne  boats.  That  one  with  the  brown  sails  is  Tom 
Yeo's  boat.  He's  awf  Uy  nice  and  his  wife's  going  to  have 
a  baby.  He  told  me  so,  and  they  hope  it'll  be  a  boy  be- 
cause Jim  Rattenbury — that's  Tom  Yeo's  mate  in  the  boat 
...  his  wife  had  a  daughter  last  month,  and  they  all  think 
it  would  be  awf 'lly  nice  if  Tom's  son  were  to  grow  up  and 
marry  Jim's  daughter,  and  I  think  it  would,  and  of  course 
it  would,  wouldn't  it?" 

"Would  it?"  said  Henry. 

*  *  Of  course  it  would.  It  would  be  so  nice  for  everybody, 
and  then  the  boat  could  be  left  to  Tom's  son  and  it  would 
belong  to  Jim's  daughter,  too.  I  think  that  would  be  very 
nice!  I  do  hope  they've  caught  a  lot  of  fish!"  She 
jumped  down  from  the  gate  and  clapped  her  hands  to- 
gether. " I  know, "  she  said.  "We  won't  pluck  primroses 
now.  We  '11  go  home  and  simply  swallow  our  tea  like  light- 
ning, and  then  we'll  tear  down  to  the  beach  and  see  them 
landing  the  fish.  Come  on,  let's  run!"  She  started  off 
and  then  suddenly  checked  herself  and  said,  "Oh,  I  think 
I'd  better  call  you  'Quinny,'  like  Ninian.  It'll  save  a  lot 
of  trouble,  won't  it?  Mother  won't  call  you  that.  She'll 
probably  call  you  'Henry'  or  'Harry.'  If  we  hurry  up, 
we'll  be  just  in  time  to  see  the  boats  beached!" 

She  ran  off,  laughing  pleasantly,  and  he  followed  after 
her. 

"That's  the  copse,"  she  shouted,  pointing  to  the  trees 
on  her  left.    "We'll  soon  be  there!" 

They  reached  the  top  of  the  lane  and  crossed  a  narrow 
public  road,  and  then  were  in  a  broad  avenue,  almost 
arched  by  trees,  at  the  end  of  which  was  the  Manor.  It 
was  a  squarely-built  sixteenth  century  house,  made  of  stone, 
taken  from  the  Roman  quarry  a  mile  or  two  away  on  the 
road  to  Franscombe.  The  first  Graham  to  own  it  received 
it  and  the  lands  adjacent  to  it  from  Henry  the  Second, 
and  ever  since  that  time  a  Graham  had  been  lord  of  the 
manor  of  Boveyhayne.  Ninian  was  the  last  of  his  line.  If 
he  were  to  die,  there  would  be  no  more  Grahams  at  Bovey- 


CHANGING  WINDS  «9 

hayne.     That  was  the  fear  that  haunted  Mrs.  Graham.  .  .  . 

Mary  ran  swiftly  across  the  grass  in  the  centre  of  the 
avenue  and  pushed  open  the  gate  that  led  through  a  fine 
stone  arch.  She  held  the  gate  open  for  Henry,  and  then 
they  both  passed  up  the  flagged  path  into  the  house. 

"Mother,  mother!"  Mary  shouted,  quickly  entering  the 
drawing-room,  "here's  Quinny,  and  please  can  we  have 
tea  at  once  because  the  trawlers  are  just  coming  home  and 
we  want  to  see  them  being  beached  and  ...  oh,  I  say,  my 
hands  are  messy,  aren't  they.  Still,  it  doesn't  matter!  I 
can  wash  them  afterwards." 

'  *  My  dear ! ' '  said  ]\Irs.  Graham  reproachfully,  and  then 
she  turned  to  greet  Henry  who  had  become  awkward  again. 
"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Quinn,"  she  said,  holding  her  hand 
out  to  him. 

Henry  flushed  deeply.  It  was  the  first  time  any  one  had 
ever  called  him  Mister,  and  he  was  very  glad  that  Ninian 
was  not  present  to  hear.  He  was  quite  well,  he  said.  No, 
he  was  not  a  bit  tired.  Yes,  he  would  rather  like  to  go 
to  his  room.  ...  A  maid  had  followed  him  into  the  room, 
and  Mrs.  Graham  asked  her  to  show  Mr.  Quinn  to  his  room, 
and,  flushing  deeper  still,  he  turned  to  go  with  her.  As 
he  left  the  room,  he  heard  Mary  saying  to  Mrs.  Graham, 
"Oh,  mother,  you  mustn't  call  him  Mr.  Quinn,  He  blushed 
frightfully  when  you  said  that.  His  name  is  'Quinny,'  or 
you  can  call  him  'Henry'  if  you  like!" 

' '  I  think  I  '11  call  him  *  Henry, '  my  dear ! ' '  said  Mrs.  Gra- 
ham. 


5. 

It  seemed  to  Henry  that  Mrs,  Graham  was  the  most  beau- 
tiful woman  in  the  world,  and  he  had  a  great  longing  that 
she  would  draw  him  to  her,  as  she  drew  Ninian,  and  put  her 
arms  about  him  and  kiss  him.  Sometimes  he  had  faint 
memories  of  the  way  in  which  poor  Bridget  Fallon  had 
hugged  him,  and  how  she  had  cried  over  him  once  when  she 


30  CHANGING  WINDS 

told  him  that  his  soul  would  be  damned  forever  because  he 
was  a  "black  Protestant."  .  .  .  He  remembered  that  epi- 
sode more  vividly  than  any  other  because  he  had  howled 
with  fear  when  she  narrated  the  pains  and  torments  of  hell 
to  him.  There  had  been  a  Mission  at  the  chapel  the  pre- 
vious week,  and  a  preaching  friar  had  frightened  the  wits 
out  of  her  with  his  description  of  "the  bad  place."  He 
had  told  the  congregation  of  scared  servants  and  frightened 
labourers  that  they  would  be  laid  on  red-hot  bars  in  hell 
and  that  the  devil  would  send  demons  to  nip  their  flesh 
with  burning  pincers.  .  .  .  Henry  could  not  be  comforted 
until  she  had  promised  to  rescue  him  from  the  Evil  One, 
and  when  she  bade  him  wear  the  scapular,  he  hurriedly 
hung  it  round  his  neck  as  if  he  were  afraid  that  before  he 
could  get  it  on,  the  Devil  would  have  him.  .  .  .  Well,  Brid- 
get had  loved  him  very  tenderly,  and  of  all  the  women  he 
had  ever  known,  she  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  most  beauti- 
ful. But  Mrs.  Graham  was  more  beautiful  than  Bridget, 
more  beautiful  than  Bridget  could  ever  be.  There  was 
something  so  exquisite  in  her  movements,  her  smile  (IVIary 
had  her  smile)  and  her  soft  sweet  voice  with  its  slight 
Devonshire  burr,  that  Henry  felt  he  wished  to  sit  beside 
her  and  walk  with  her  and  always  be  by  her.  His  sudden, 
growing  love -for  her  made  him  feel  bold,  and  he  lost  the 
shy,  nervous  sensation  he  had  had  when  he  first  came  into 
her  presence  and  heard  her  call  him  "Mr.  Quinn,"  and  so, 
when  Ninian  and  Mary  talked  about  the  trawlers,  he  turned 
to  Mrs.  Graham  quite  naturally,  and  said,  "Won't  you 
come  to  the  beach,  too,  Mrs.  Graham?"  Instantly  Ninian 
and  Mary  were  clamorous  that  she  should  go  with  them, 
and  so  she  consented.  .  .  . 

"We'll  have  to  hurry,"  said  Mary,  "because  the  boats 
come  in  awf 'lly  quick." 

"My  dear,  I  can't  run,"  Mrs.  Graham  said. 

It  was  Ninian  who  suggested  that  Widger  should  harness 
the  pony  and  that  they  should  drive  down  to  the  beach  in 
the  buggy.  .  .  . 


CHANGING  WINDS  91 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Mary. 

And  Ninian  went  off  to  tell  Widger  to  hurry  harder  than 
he  had  ever  hurried  before  in  his  life. 

"I'll  do  that  for  'ee,  Mas'er  Ninyan,  sure  'nough!"  said 
"Widger. 

But  Ninian  and  Mary  were  too  impatient  to  wait  for  the 
buggy,  and  so  they  set  off  together,  leaving  Henry  to  fol- 
low with  Mrs.  Graham. 

"Quinny'll  drive  you  down,  mater,"  Ninian  said. 

Mrs.  Graham  turned  to  Henry.  "You  won't  let  Peggy 
run  away  with  me,  will  you?"  she  said,  pretending  to  be 
alarmed,  and  Mary  and  Ninian  burst  into  laughter  at  the 
thought  of  Peggy  .  .  .  which  was  short  for  Pegasus  .  .  . 
running  away  with  any  one. 

"He's  fat  and  lazy,"  said  Ninian. 

"He  goes  to  sleep  in  the  shafts,"  ]\Iary  added,  running 
out  of  the  drawing-room  on  Ninian 's  heels. 


Boveyhayne  Bay  is  a  little  bay  within  the  very  large  bay 
that  is  guarded  at  one  end  by  Portland  Bill  and  at  the 
other  end  by  Start  Point.  It  lies  in  the  shelter  of  two 
white  cliffs  which  keep  its  water  quiet  even  when  the  sea 
outside  is  rough,  and  so  it  is  a  fine  home  for  fishermen 
though  there  is  no  harbour  and  the  trawlers  have  to  be 
hauled  up  the  shingly  beach  every  night.  Nowhere  else  on 
that  coast  are  chalk  cliffs  to  be  found,  and  the  sudden 
whiteness  of  Boveyhayne  Head  and  the  "White  Cliff  shin- 
ing out  of  the  red  clay  of  the  adjoining  cliffs  is  a  sign  to 
sailors,  passing  down  the  Channel  on  their  homeward  beat, 
that  they  are  off  the  coast  of  Devonshire.  Mrs.  Graham 
talked  to  Henry  about  the  fishermen  as  they  drove  down 
Bovey  Lane  towards  the  village. 

"I  love  Boveyhayne,"  she  said,  "because  the  people  are 
so  fine.  They  rely  on  themselves  far  more  than  any  other 
people  I  know.    That's  because  they're  fishermen,  I  sup- 


32  CHANGING  WINDS 

pose,  and  have  no  employers.  They  work  for  themselves 
.  .  .  and  it's  frightfully  hard  work  too.  People  come  to 
Boveyhayne  in  the  summer,  but  they  can't  spoil  it  because 
the  villagers  don't  depend  on  visitors  for  a  living:  they 
depend  on  themselves  •  .  .  and  the  sea.  There  isn't  a  man 
in  Bo^'eyhayne  who  is  pretending  to  be  a  fisherman  and  is 
really  a  cadger  on  summer  visitors.  Some  of  them  won't 
be  bothered  to  take  people  out  in  rowing-boats — they  feel 
that  that  is  work  for  the  old.  I  used  to  wonder, ' '  she  went 
on,  "why  it  was  that  I  didn't  really  like  the  villagers  in 
other  places,  but  I  never  found  out  why  until  I  came  to 
Boveyhayne,  and  it  was  simply  because  I  felt  instinctively 
that  they  were  spongers  .  .  .  those  other  people  .  .  .  that 
they  hadn't  any  real  work  to  do,  and  that  they  were  living 
on  us  like  .  .  .  like  ticks  on  a  sheep.  The  Boveyhayne 
men  are  splendid  men.  It  wouldn't  make  any  difference 
.  .  .  much  difference,  anyhow  ...  to  them  if  another  vis- 
itor never  came  to  the  place.  And  that  is  how  it  ought  to 
be  in  every  village  in  England!" 

Henry  was  not  quite  certain  that  he  understood  all  that 
she  was  saying,  but  he  liked  to  listen  to  her,  and  so  he  did 
not  interrupt  her,  except  to  say  "Yes"  and  "I  suppose  so" 
when  it  seemed  that  she  was  waiting  for  him  to  say  some- 
thing. 

"Do  you  like  being  in  England?"  she  asked  him  sud- 
denly. 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  answered. 

"Would  you  rather  be  in  England  than  in  Ireland?" 

He  did  not  know.  He  liked  being  at  home  with  his 
father,  but  he  also  liked  being  at  Rumpell's  with  Gilbert 
and  Roger  and  Ninian,  and  now  he  felt  that  he  would  like 
to  be  at  Boveyhayne  with  Mrs.  Graham  and  IVIary. 

"Perhaps  you  like  people  better  than  you  like  places," 
Mrs.  Graham  said. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  replied.  "I  hadn't  thought  about 
that." 


CHANGING  WINDS  SS 

"You  must  come  again  to  Boveyhayne.  Perhaps,  in  the 
summer,  Gilbert  and  Roger  will  come,  too ! ' ' 

Henry  thought  that  that  would  be  awf 'lly  jolly.  .  .  . 

They  turned  down  the  village  street  and  left  Peggy  at 
the  foot  of  it  while  they  went  down  the  slope  leading  on  to 
the  beach  where  the  trawlers  were  now  being  hauled  up 
by  the  aid  of  hand  winches.  Henry  could  see  Mary  and 
Ninian  in  the  group  of  fishermen  who  were  working  the 
nearest  winch.  They  had  hold  of  one  of  the  wooden  bars 
and  were  helping  to  push  it  round. 

"We'll  go  down  to  the  boats,"  said  Mrs.  Graham,  "and 
see  the  fish ! ' ' 

She  put  her  hand  on  his  shoulder,  and  he  helped  to 
steady  her  as  they  walked  across  the  shingle  to  where  the 
boats  were  slowly  climbing  out  of  the  sea  over  wooden  run- 
ners on  to  the  high  stones. 

One  of  the  boats  had  already  been  hauled  up,  and  the 
fishermen,  having  thrown  out  their  gear,  were  now  getting 
ready  to  sell  their  fish.  They  threw  out  a  heap  of  skate 
and  dun-cows,^  and  auctioned  them  to  the  dealers  standing 
by. 

"They're  still  alive,"  Henry  whispered  to  Mrs.  Graham 
as  he  watched  the  dun-cows  curling  their  bodies  and  the 
skate  gasping  in  the  air.  He  looked  over  the  side  of  the 
trawler  and  saw  baskets  of  dabs  and  plaice  and  some  soles 
and  turbot  and  a  couple  of  crabs.  A  plaice  flapped  help- 
lessly and  fell  off  the  heap  in  the  basket  on  to  the  bottom 
of  the  boat,  and  one  of  the  fishermen  trod  on  it.  .  .  . 
"They're  all  alive,"  Henry  said,  turning  again  to  Mrs. 
Graham. 

"Yes,"  she  answered. 

"But  .  .  .  isn't  it  cruel?     Oughtn't  they  to  kill  them?" 

*  *  It  would  take  a  long  time  to  kill  all  those  fish, ' '  she  said. 
"Most  of  them  are  dead  already,  and  the  others  will  be 
dead  soon.  ..." 

1  Dog-fish. 


34  CHANGING  WINDS 

But  he  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  feeling  that  the  fish 
were  suffering  agonies,  and  he  began  to  feel  sick  with  pity. 

"I  think  I'll  go  and  see  Mary  and  Ninian,"  he  said  to 
Mrs.  Graham,  edging  away  from  the  boat. 

"All  right,"  she  replied. 

But  Ninian  and  Mary  were  on  their  way  down  to  the 
boats,  and  so  he  did  not  get  far. 

"Come  and  see  them  cutting  up  the  skate  and  dun- 
cows!"  said  Ninian,  catching  hold  of  Henry's  arm  and 
pulling  him  back. 

"Yes,  let's,"  Mary  added. 

The  sick  feeling  was  growing  stronger  in  Henry.  He 
hated  the  sight  of  blood.  Once  he  had  been  ill  in  the  street 
because  William  Henry  Matier  had  shown  a  dead  rabbit  to 
him,  the  blood  dribbling  from  its  mouth  .  .  .  and  the  sight 
of  a  butcher's  shop  always  filled  him  with  nausea.  He  did 
not  wish  to  see  the  skate  cut  up,  but  he  felt  that  Mary 
would  despise  him  if  he  did  not  go  with  Ninian  and  her, 
so  he  followed  after  them. 

The  fishermen  were  sharpening  their  knives  on  the  stones 
when  they  came  up  to  them,  and  then  one  of  them  seized 
a  dun-cow  and  struck  its  head  on  the  shingle  and  cut  it 
open,  while  another  fisherman  inserted  his  knife  into  the 
quivering  body  of  a  skate  and  cut  out  the  entrails  and  the 
head  in  circular  pieces. 

"But  they're  alive,"  said  Henry. 

"Of  course,  they're  alive,"  said  Ninian,  seizing  a  dun- 
cow  and  smacking  its  head  against  the  beach.  "Here  you 
are,  Jim,"  he  added,  passing  the  dun-cow  to  a  fisherman. 
"Here's  another  one!" 

Henry  could  not  stay  any  longer.  He  turned  away 
quickly  and  almost  ran  up  the  beach.  "Hilloa,"  Ninian 
shouted  after  him,  *  *  where  are  you  going  ? ' ' 

He  stopped  for  a  moment  and  looked  back,  wondering 
what  excuse  he  should  make  for  his  running  away.  "I 
.  .  .  I  'm  just  going  to  see  if  ...  if  Peggy 's  all  right ! ' ' 

"She's  all  right,"  Ninian  replied. 


CHANGING  WINDS  86 

'I  think  I'll  just  go  all  the  same,"  said  Henry. 

'But  you'll  miss  it  all,"  Mary  called  to  him, 

'  I  '11  .  .  .  I  '11  come  back  presently, ' '  he  answered. 


He  had  finished  a  game  of  cards  with  Mary  and  then 
Mary  had  gone  off  to  bed.  She  had  kissed  her  mother  and 
Ninian,  and  then  she  held  out  her  hand  to  him  and  said 
*' Good-night,  Quinny!"  and  he  said  "Good-night,  Mary!" 
and  held  the  door  open  for  her  so  that  she  might  pass  out. 

''Let's  go  out  in  a  boat  to-morrow,"  she  said.  "We'll 
go  to  the  Smugglers'  Cave.  ..." 

"Yes,  let's,"  he  answered. 

When  she  had  gone,  Mrs.  Graham  called  him  to  her. 
"Come  and  sit  here,"  she  said,  pointing  to  a  footstool  at 
her  feet.  Ninian  was  trying  to  solve  a  chess  problem  and 
was  deaf  to  the  whole  world.  .  .  . 

"I  suppose  you  didn't  like  to  see  the  fish  being  gutted, 
Henry?"  Mrs.  Graham  said. 

He  glanced  up  at  her  quickly.  He  had  not  spoken  of 
his  feeling  to  any  of  them  because  he  was  ashamed  of  it. 
"It's  namby-pamby  of  me,"  he  had  said  to  himself.  He 
flushed  as  he  looked  up,  fearing  that  she  must  despise  him 
for  his  weakness,  and  he  almost  denied  that  he  had  had  any 
feeling  at  all  about  it ;  but  he  did  not  deny  it.  "I  couldn 't 
bear  it,  Mrs.  Graham,"  he  said  quickly  in  a  low  voice.  "I 
felt  I  should  be  ill  if  I  stayed  there  any  longer ! ' ' 

"I  used  to  feel  like  that,"  she  said,  patting  his  shoulder, 
"but  you  soon  get  used  to  it.  The  fishermen  aren't  really 
cruel.     They  are  the  kindest  men  I  know!" 

Ninian,  having  failed  to  solve  his  chess  problem,  got  up 
from  the  table  and  stretched  himself  and  yawned. 

"I'm  going  to  bed,  Quinny,"  he  said.  "Are  you 
coming?" 

Henry  rose  and  shook  hands  with  Mrs.  Graham.  "Good- 
night," he  said. 


36  CHANGING  WINDS 

** Good-night,  Henry!"  she  replied.  "I  hope  you'll 
sleep  well."  And  then  she  turned  to  kiss  Ninian,  who 
pushed  a  sleepy  face  against  hers. 

8 

In  the  morning,  there  were  fried  plaice  for  breakfast, 
and  Henry  ate  two  of  them. 

"These  are  some  of  the  fish  you  saw  on  the  beach  last 
night,"  said  Mrs.  Graham. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Henry,  reaching  for  the  toast,  and 
swallowing  a  mouthful  of  the  fish.    "And  jolly  nice,  too!" 


THE  THIRD  CHAPTER 


He  stayed  at  Boveyhayne  until  the  time  came  to  return 
to  Rumpell's,  and  the  holiday  passed  so  quickly  that  he 
could  not  believe  that  it  was  really  over.  They  had  pie- 
nicked  in  the  Smugglers'  Cave  and  on  Boveyhayne  Com- 
mon where  the  gorse  was  in  bloom,  and  Henry  had  plucked 
whinblossoms  to  dye  Easter  eggs  when  he  found  that  the 
Grahams  did  not  know  that  whinblossoms  could  be  used 
in  this  way.  * '  You  boil  the  blossoms  and  the  eggs  together, 
and  the  eggs  come  out  a  lovely  browny-yellow  colour.  We 
always  dye  our  eggs  like  that  in  the  north  of  Ireland!" 
And  on  the  day  they  picnicked  on  Boveyhayne  Common, 
Mrs.  Graham  took  them  down  the  side  of  the  hill  to  the 
big  farm  at  Franscombe  and  treated  them  to  a  Devonshire 
tea :  bread  and  butter  and  raspberry  jam  and  cream,  cream 
piled  thick  on  the  jam,  and  cake.  (But  they  ate  so  much 
of  the  bread  and  butter  and  jam  and  cream  that  they  could 
not  eat  the  cake.)  And  they  swam  every  day.  .  .  .  Mary 
was  like  a  sea-bird:  she  seemed  to  swim  on  the  crest  of 
every  wave  as  lightly  as  a  feather,  and  was  only  submerged 
when  she  chose  to  thrust  her  head  into  the  body  of  some 
wave  swelling  higher  and  higher  until  its  curled  top  could 
stay  no  longer  and  it  pitched  forward  and  fell  in  a  white, 
spumy  pile  on  the  shore.  She  would  climb  over  the  stern 
of  a  rowing-boat  and  then  plunge  from  it  into  the  sea 
again,  and  come  up  laughing  with  the  water  streaming 
from  her  face  and  hair,  or  dive  beneath  Ninian  and  pull 
his  feet  until  he  kicked  out.  .  .  . 

And  then  the  last  evening  of  his  visit  came.    The  vicar 
of  Boveyhayne  and  his  wife  were  to  dine  at  the  Manor 

37 


18a'7«7 


38  CHANGING  WINDS 

that  night,  and  so  they  were  bidden  to  put  on  their  com- 
pany manners  and  their  evening  clothes.  Ninian  grumbled 
lustily  when  he  heard  the  news,  for  he  had  made  arrange- 
ments with  a  fisherman  to  "clean"  a  skate  that  evening 
when  the  trawlers  came  home.  "I  bet  him  thruppence  I 
could  do  it  as  good  as  he  could,  and  now  I'll  have  to  pay 
up.  Beastly  swizz,  that 's  what  it  is ! "  he  said  to  Henry  in 
the  stable  where  he  was  busy  rubbing  down  Peggy,  al- 
though Peggy  did  not  need  or  wish  to  be  rubbed  down.  "I 
think  Mother  ought  to  give  me  the  thruppence  any- 
how! .  .  ." 

After  dinner,  Ninian  and  Henry  and  Mary  had  contrived 
to  miss  the  drawing-room,  whither  Mrs.  Graham  led  the 
Vicar  and  his  wife,  and  they  went  to  the  room  which  had 
been  the  nursery  and  was  now  a  work-room,  and  lit  the 
fire  and  sat  round  it,  talking  and  telling  tales  and  reading 
until  the  time  came  for  Mary  to  go  to  bed. 

"We're  going  soon,  too!"  said  Ninian.  "We've  got  to 
get  up  jolly  early  to-morrow,  blow  it!  I  hate  getting  up 
early!" 

Henry  yawned  and  stretched  out  his  hands  to  the  fire. 
"I  wish  I  weren't  going  to-morrow,"  he  said,  half  re- 
flectively. 

"So  do  I,"  Mary  exclaimed. 

She  was  sitting  on  the  floor  beside  him  and  he  turned  to 
look  at  her,  a  little  startled  by  the  suddenness  of  her 
speech. 

"I  wish  you  weren't  going,"  she  said,  sitting  up  and 
leaning  against  him  as  she  was  accustomed  to  lean  against 
Ninian.    "It's  been  great  fun  this  Easter!" 

Ninian  caught  hold  of  her  hair  and  pulled  it.  '  *  He  isn  't 
a  bad  chap,  old  Quinny, ' '  he  said.     * '  Soft-hearted,  a  bit ! " 

' '  Shut  up,  Ninian ! ' '  Henry  shouted,  punching  him  in  the 
ribs. 

But  Ninian  would  not  shut  up.  "Blubs  like  anything 
if  you  kill  a  rabbit  or  anything.  He  eats  them  all  the 
same ! ' ' 


CHANGING  WINDS  39 

Mary  put  her  hands  over  Ninian's  mouth.  "Leave 
Quinny  alone,  Nmian,"  she  said.  "He's  much  nicer  than 
you,  and  I  do  think  it's  horrid  of  you  to  go  gutting  fish  just 
for  fun.  The  fishermen  have  to  do  it,  else  we  wouldn't 
get  any  breakfast,  and  of  course  plaice  are  very  nice  for 
breakfast.  ..." 

"Yahhh!"  yelled  Ninian. 

"Well,  anyhow,"  she  continued,  " Quinny 's  much  nicer 
than  you  are.    Aren't  you,  Quinny?" 

* '  No,  he  isn  't, ' '  Ninian  asserted  stoutly.  "  I  'm  ten  times 
nicer  than  he  is!" 

"No,  you're  not.  .  .  ." 

Henry,  embarrassed  at  first  by  Mary's  admiration, 
plucked  up  his  spirits  and  joined  in. 

"Of  course,  I'm  nicer  than  you  are,  Ninian,"  he  said. 
' '  Anybody  could  see  that  with  half  an  eye  in  his  head ! ' ' 

"All  right,  then,  I'll  fight  you  for  it,"  Ninian  replied, 
squaring  up  at  him  in  mock  rage. 

"I'll  box  your  ears  for  you,  Ninian  Graham!"  said 
Mary,  *  *  and  I  M'on  't  let  Quinny  fight  you,  and  Quinny,  if 
you  dare  to  fight  him,  I  shan't  like  you  any  more.  ..." 

"Then  I  won't  fight  him,  Mary.  She's  saved  your  life, 
Ninian,"  he  said,  turning  to  his  friend. 

"Yahhh!"  Ninian  shouted. 

"  I  '11  get  up  very  early  to-morrow  morning, ' '  said  Mary, 
as  she  prepared  to  leave  them,  "and  perhaps  mother '11 
let  me  drive  to  Whitcombe  with  you  to  see  you  off ! " 

"No,"  Ninian  objected,  "we  don't  want  you  blubbing 
all  over  the  platform!  ..." 

"I  shan't  blub,  Ninian.    I  never  blub !  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  you  do.  You  always  blub.  You  blubbed  the  last 
time  and  made  me  feel  an  awful  ass ! "  he  persisted. 

"Well,  I  shan't  blub  this  time,  or  if  I  do,  it  won't  be 
about  you.  .  .  .  Anyhow,  I  shall  get  up  early  and  see 
Quinny  off.     I  like  Quinny !  .  .  . " 

Ninian  pointed  at  Henry,  and  burst  out  laughing.  "  Oh ! 
Oh,  he 's  blushing !    Look  at  him !    Oh !    Oh ! ! " 


40  CHANGING  WINDS 

''Shut  up,  Ninian,  you  ass!"  said  Henry,  turning  away. 

Mary  went  over  to  him  and  took  hold  of  his  arm. 
"Never  mind,  Quinny,"  she  said,  "I  do  like  you.  Good- 
night!" 

Then  she  went  out  and  left  him  alone  with  Ninian. 

*  *  I  suppose,  * '  said  Ninian  when  she  had  gone,  ' '  we  ought 
to  go  down  and  say  something  to  the  Vicar ! ' ' 


That  night,  Henry  went  to  bed  in  the  knowledge  that  hf; 
loved  Mary  Graham.  "I'll  marry  her,"  he  said,  as  he 
stripped  his  clothes  off.  "That's  what  I'll  do.  I'll  jolly 
well  marry  her!" 

In  the  excitement  of  his  love,  he  forgot  to  wash  his  hands 
and  face  and  clean  his  teeth,  and  he  climbed  into  bed  and 
lay  there  thinking  about  Mary.  "I  suppose,"  he  said,  "I 
ought  to  tell  her  about  it.  That  ass,  Ninian '11  be  sure  to 
laugh  if  I  tell  him!"  He  sat  up  suddenly  in  bed. 
"Lord,"  he  exclaimed,  "I  forgot  to  wash!"  He  got  out 
of  bed  and  washed  himself.  "Beastly  fag,  cleaning  your 
teeth,"  he  murmured,  and  then  went  back  to  bed. 

* '  I  know, ' '  he  said,  as  he  blew  out  the  candle  and  hauled 
the  clothes  well  about  his  neck.  "I'll  make  Ninian  look 
after  the  luggage  and  stuff,  and  then  I  '11  tell  her.  On  the 
platform !  I  hope  she  won't  be  cross  about  it ! "  And  then 
he  fell  asleep. 

8 

In  the  morning,  they  went  off,  Mary  with  them,  and  they 
stood  up  in  the  carriage  and  waved  their  hands  to  Mrs. 
Graham  until  the  dip  in  the  road  hid  her  from  their  view. 
Ninian,  who  had  been  so  disdainful  of  "blubbers"  the 
night  before,  sat  down  in  a  corner  of  the  carriage  and 
looked  miserable,  but  neither  Mary  nor  Henry  said  any- 
thing to  him.    They  drove  slowly  down  the  Lane  because 


CHANGING  WINDS  41 

it  was  difficult  to  do  otherwise,  but  when  they  had  come 
into  the  road  that  leads  to  Franscombe,  Widger  whipped 
up  the  horse,  and  the  carriage  moved  quickly  through  the 
village,  past  the  schools,  until  they  came  to  the  long  hill 
out  of  the  village  .  .  .  and  there  Jim  Rattenbury  was  wait- 
ing for  them. 

"I  brought  'ee  a  li'l  bit  o*  fish,  Mas'er  Ninyan,"  he  said, 
putting  a  basket  into  the  carriage. 

"I  say,  Jim!"  Ninian  exclaimed,  forgetting  his  misery 
for  a  while.  They  thanked  him  for  the  gift  and  enquired 
about  the  baby  Rattenbury  and  wished  him  good-luck  in 
the  mackerel  fishing,  and  were  about  to  go  on  when  Ninian 
recollected  his  failure  to  keep  his  appointment  with  Tom 
Yeo  on  the  previous  evening.  "Oh,  Jim,"  he  said,  "1  bet 
Tom  Yeo  thruppence  I'd  'clean'  a  skate  as  good  as  he  can, 
but  I  couldn't  come  ...  so  here's  the  thruppence.  You 
might  give  it  to  Tom  for  me,  will  you ! ' ' 

Jim  Rattenbury  waved  the  money  away.  "Ah,  that  be 
all  right,  Mas'er  Ninyan,"  he  exclaimed.  "You  can  try 
your  'and  at  it  nex'  time  you  comes  'ome.  I'll  tell  Tom. 
'Er'll  be  glad  to  'ave  longer  to  get  ready  for  it,  'er  will!" 
He  laughed  at  his  own  joke,  and  they  laughed,  too.  "Good 
luck  to  'ee,  Mas'er  Ninyan,"  Jim  went  on,  "an'  to  'ee  too, 
sir!"  he  added,  turning  to  Henry. 

"And  me,  Jim,  and  me!"  Mary  said  impetuously. 

"Why,  o'  course.  Miss  Mary,  an'  to  'ee,  too!" 

They  drove  on  up  the  hill,  from  which  they  could  look 
down  on  the  village,  tucked  snugly  in  the  hollow  of  the 
rising  lands,  and  along  the  top  of  the  ridge,  gaining 
glimpses  of  the  blue  Channel,  dotted  far  out  with  the  sails 
of  trawlers,  and  down  the  hair-pin  road  where  the  pine 
trees  stand  like  black  sentinels,  through  Whitcombe  to  the 
station.  .  .  . 

"I  wish  we  weren't  going!  ..."  one  or  other  of  them 
said  as  they  drove  on. 

"I'd  love  to  have  another  swim,"  said  Ninian. 

"Or  go  out  in  a  boat,"  said  Henry. 


4ft  CHANGING  WINDS 

The  carriage  entered  the  station-yard  and  they  got  out 
and  walked  towards  the  platform.  There  were  very  few 
people  travelling  by  that  early  train,  and  Henry  was  glad 
because,  if  he  could  dispose  of  Ninian  for  a  few  moments, 
he  thought  he  could  settle  his  affairs  with  Mary. 

"Ninian,"  he  said,  trying  to  speak  very  casually,  "you 
and  Widger  can  look  after  the  luggage  and  tickets,  can't 
you?" 

Ninian,  who  had  already  induced  one  of  the  porters  to 
describe  a  thrilling  fox-hunt  in  which  the  fox  took  to  the 
river  and  was  killed,  after  a  hard  struggle,  in  the  water, 
nodded  his  head  and  said  * '  Righto ! ' ' 

"Let's  walk  up  and  down,"  Henry  said  to  Mary,  and 
they  walked  towards  the  end  of  the  platform.  "It's  been 
awf 'lly  nice  here !"  he  added. 

"Yes,  hasn't  it?"  she  replied.  "You'll  come  again, 
won't  you?" 

"J?a-ther!"  he  exclaimed. 

*  *  How  long  will  it  be  before  you  can  come  again  ? ' ' 

"I  don't  know.  You  see,  my  father '11  expect  me  to  go 
home  in  the  summer.  ..." 

"Oh!" 

' '  But  I  might  come  for  part  of  the  hols.    I  'd  like  to ! " 

"Yes,"  she  said,  sliding  one  of  her  feet  in  front  of  her 
and  regarding  the  tip  of  her  shoe  intently. 

They  did  not  speak  for  a  few  moments  until  he  remem- 
bered that  time  was  fleeting.  "It's  an  awf 'lly  nice  day," 
he  said,  and  licked  his  lips. 

"Yes,  isn't  it?  .  .  ." 

"Awf 'lly  nice,"  he  continued  and  broke  off  lamely. 

They  could  see  the  train  coming  into  Coly  station,  and  a 
sense  of  despair  seized  Henry  when  he  thought  that  it 
would  soon  come  into  Whitcombe  station  and  then  go  back 
again  to  the  junction,  carrying  Ninian  and  him  with  it. 
He  could  feel  his  nervousness  mounting  up  his  legs  until  it 
began  to  gallop  through  his  body.  ...  He  felt  frightfully 
dry,  and  when  he  tried  to  speak,  he  could  not  do  anything 


CHANGING  WINDS  4^ 

but  cough.  The  train  had  started  now  from  Coly  station. 
He  could  see  the  white  smoke  rising  from  the  engine's 
funnel  almost  in  a  straight  line,  so  little  wind  was  there  in 
the  valley.  .  .  .  "Oh,  Lord!"  he  said  to  himself.  .  .  . 

"What  age  are  you?"  he  suddenly  demanded  of  her. 

"Fourteen,"  she  replied. 

"I'm  sixteen  .  .  .  nearly!"  he  continued. 

"Ninian's  over  sixteen,"  Mary  said,  and  added,  "I  wish 
I  were  sixteen!" 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  I  just  wish  I  were.  When  I'm 
sixteen,  you'll  be  eighteen  .  .  .  nearly!" 

"So  I  shall.     I  say,  Mary!  ..." 

"Yes,  Quinny?" 

He  could  hear  the  rattle  of  the  train  on  the  railway  lines, 
and,  turning  towards  the  other  end  of  the  platform,  he  saw 
that  Ninian,  having  settled  about  the  luggage  and  finished 
listening  to  the  story  of  the  fox  hunt,  was  approaching 
them.  "Come  on,"  he  said,  catching  hold  of  Mary's  arm 
and  drawing  her  to  the  other  end  of  the  platform. 

"But  that's  the  wrong  end,"  she  protested. 

"I  say,  Mary!  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  Quinny?" 

"Oh,  I  say,  Mary!  .  .  ." 

"Yes?  .  .  ." 

"I'd  like  to  marry  you  awf 'lly,  if  you  don't  mind !" 

It  was  out  ...  oh.  Lord,  it  was  out !  .  .  . 

"Oh,  I  should  love  it,  Quinny,"  said  Mary,  looking  up  at 
him  and  smiling. 

"Would  you  really?" 

"Yes.  Of  course,  I  would.  Let's  tell  Ninian  and 
Widger!  .  .  . 

Her  suggestion  alarmed  him.  Ninian  would  be  sure  to 
chaff  him  about  it.  .  .  .  "Oh,  not  yet!  .  .  ."  he  began, 
but  he  was  too  late.  Ninian  had  come  up  to  them,  grum- 
bling, "I  thought  you  two'd  started  to  leg  it  to  Kum- 
pell's.  .  .  ." 


44  CHANGING  WINDS 

Mary  seized  his  arm  and  pressed  it  tightly.  "Quinny 
and  me  are  going  to  get  married, ' '  she  said. 

"Silly  asses,"  said  Ninian.  "Come  on,  here's  the  train 
in!" 


They  climbed  into  their  carriage  a  few  seconds  before 
the  train  steamed  out  of  the  station  again,  and  jammed 
themselves  in  the  window  to  look  out,  Ninian  was  full  of 
instructions  to  Widger  about  his  terrier  and  his  ferrets  and 
a  blind  mouse  that  was  supposed  to  recognise  him  with 
miraculous  ease.  There  was  also  some  point  about  the  fox- 
hunt which  required  explanation.  .  .  . 

"Good-bye,  Mary!"  Henry  said,  taking  hold  of  her 
hand  and  pressing  it.  "I  suppose,"  he  whispered,  "I 
ought  to  give  you  a  ring  or  something.  Chaps  always  do 
that!  .  .  ." 

Mary  shook  her  head.  "I  don't  think  mother  would 
like  that,"  she  replied. 

"Well,  anyhow,  we're  engaged,  aren't  we?" 

"Oh,  of  course,  Quinny!" 

"It's  most  awf 'lly  nice  of  you  to  have  me,  Mary  1" 

"But  I  like  you!" 

"Do  you  really?" 

The  guard  blew  his  whistle  and  waved  his  flag  and  the 
train  began  to  move  out  of  the  station.  He  stood  at  the 
window  looking  back  at  Mary  standing  on  the  platform, 
waving  her  hands  to  him,  until  he  could  see  her  no  longer. 

"What  are  you  looking  at?"  Ninian  asked,  taking  down 
the  basket  of  fish  which  Jim  Rattenbury  had  given  him  and 
preparing  to  open  it. 

"I'm  looking  at  Mary,"  he  answered. 

"Sloppy  ass!"  said  Ninian,  and  then  he  added  excitedly, 
* '  Oh,  I  say,  plaice  and  dabs  and  a  lobster  ...  a  whopping 
big  lobster!    It's  berried,  too!"    He  pointed  to  the  red 


CHANGING  WINDS  45 

seeds  in  the  lobster's  body.  ":My  Heavenly  Father, 
Quinny!"  he  exclaimed,  "what  a  tuck-in  we'll  have  to- 
night!" 

*'Eh?"  Henry  replied  vaguely. 


THE  FOURTH  CHAPTER 

1 

Gilbert  summoned  Roger  and  Henry  and  Ninian  to  a 
solemn  council.  "Look  here,"  he  said,  "I've  made  up  my 
mind  about  myself ! ' ' 

"Oh!"  they  exclaimed, 

"Yes.     I'm  going  to  be  a  dramatist  and  write  plays!" 

"Why?"  Ninian  asked. 

"I  dunno!  I  went  to  see  a  play  in  the  hols,  and  I 
thought  I'd  like  to  write  one,  too.  It  seems  easy  enough. 
You  just  make  up  a  lot  of  talk,  and  then  you  get  some 
actors  to  say  it.  .  .  ." 

"I  see,"  said  Ninian. 

"And  when  I  was  a  kid,"  Gilbert  continued,  "I  used  to 
make  up  plays  for  parties.  Jolly  good,  they  were  ...  at 
least  I  thought  so ! " 

Gilbert,  having  settled  what  his  own  career  was  to  be, 
was  eager  that  his  friends  should  settle  what  their  careers 
were  to  be.  "Roger,  of  course,"  he  said,  "has  made  up  his 
mind  to  be  a  barrister,  so  that's  him,  but  what  about  you, 
Ninian,  and  what  about  Quinny  ? ' ' 

Ninian  said  that  he  did  not  know  what  he  should  do. 
Mrs.  Graham  was  anxious  that  he  should  become  a  member 
of  parliament  and  lead  the  life  of  a  country  gentleman  who 
takes  an  intelligent  interest  in  his  estate  and  his  country. 
His  Uncle  George,  the  Dean  of  Exebury,  oscillated  between 
two  opinions:  one  that  Ninian  should  become  a  parson.  .  .  . 

Gilbert  suddenly  proposed  a  resolution,  sternly  forbid- 
ding their  young  friend,  Ninian  Graham,  to  become  a  par- 
son on  any  conditions  whatever.  The  resolution  was  sec- 
onded by  Henry  Quinn,  and  passed  unanimously. 

46 


CHANGING  WINDS  47 

.  .  .  and  the  other  that  he  should  enter  the  Diplomatic 
Service.  The  Dean  had  talked  largely  to  Ninian  on  the 
subject  of  his  career.  On  the  whole  he  had  inclined  to- 
wards the  Diplomatic  Service.  He  had  stood  in  front  of 
the  fire,  his  hands  thrust  through  the  belt  of  his  apron  and 
talked  magnificently  of  the  glories  of  diplomacy.  "How 
splendid  it  would  be,  Ninian,"  he  said  in  that  rich,  flowing 
voice  which  caused  ladies  to  admire  his  sermons  so  much, 
*  *  if  you  were  to  become  an  ambassador ! ' '  Ninian,  feeling 
that  he  ought  to  say  something,  had  murmured  that  he 
supposed  it  would  be  rather  jolly.  "An  ambassador!" 
the  Dean  continued.  "His  Britannic  Majesty's  Ambas- 
sador to  the  Imperial  Court  of  ...  of  Vienna!"  Pie 
liked  the  sound  of  the  title  so  much  that  he  repeated  it: 
"His  Britannic  Majesty's  Ambassador!  ..." 

But  Ninian  had  interrupted  him.  "I  don't  think  I'd 
like  that  job  very  much.  Uncle  George ! "  he  said.  ' '  You  're 
supposed  to  have  an  awful  lot  of  tact  if  you're  an  ambas- 
sador, and  I  'm  rather  an  ass  at  tact ! ' ' 

' '  Well,  then,  the  Church ! "  the  Dean  suggested.  * '  After 
all,  the  Church  is  still  the  profession  of  a  gentleman !  .  .  . " 

But  Ninian  had  as  little  desire  to  be  a  priest  as  he  had 
to  be  an  ambassador.    He  wished  to  be  an  engineer  1 

"A  what?"  the  Dean  had  exclaimed  in  horror. 

"An  engineer,  uncle!" 

The  Dean  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  notion  that  Ninian 
was  a  small  boy,  and  so  he  imagined  that  when  Ninian  said 
an  "engineer,"  he  meant  a  man  who  drives  a  railway 
engine.  .  .  .  The  Dean  was  not  insensible  to  the  value  of 
engineers  to  the  community  ...  in  fact,  whenever  he 
travelled  by  train,  he  invariably  handed  any  newspapers 
he  might  have  with  him  to  the  engine-driver  at  the  end  of 
the  journey,  "because,"  he  said,  "I  wish  to  show  my  appre- 
ciation of  the  fact  that  without  his  care  and  skill  I  might 
— er — have  been — well  involved  in  a  collision  or  something 
of  the  sort!"  But,  while  the  occupation  of  an  engine- 
driver  was  a  very  admirable  one  .  .  .  very  admirable  one, 


48  CHANGING  WINDS 

indeed  .  .  .  for  a  member  of  the  working-class,  it  could 
hardly  be  described  as  a  suitable  occupation  for  a  gentle- 
man. "I  think,"  he  said,  "that  engine-drivers  get  thirty- 
eight  shillings  per  week,  or  some  such  amount!"  He  ad- 
justed his  glasses  and  beamed  pleasantly  at  Ninian.  "My 
dear  boy,"  he  said,  "thirty-eight  shillings  per  week  is 
hardly  .  .  .  hardly  an  adequate  income  for  a  Graham ! ' ' 

Ninian  did  not  like  to  ask  his  uncle  George  to  ' '  chuck  it, ' ' 
nor  did  he  care  to  tell  him  that  he  was  making  a  frightful 
ass  of  himself,  and  so  he  did  not  answer,  and  the  beaming 
old  gentleman  felt  that  he  had  impressed  the  lad.  ...  It 
was  Mrs.  Graham  who  reminded  him  of  the  larger  functions 
of  an  engineer. 

"I  think,"  she  said,  "that  Ninian  wishes  to  build  bridges 
and  railways  and  .  .  .  and  things  like  that!" 

"Oh!"  said  the  Dean,  and  his  countenance  altered 
swiftly.  "Oh,  yes,  yes,  yes!  I  was  forgetting  about 
bridges.  Dear  me,  yes!  I  remember  meeting  Sir  John 
Aird  once.  Remarkable  man!  Very  remarkable  man! 
He  built  the  Assouan  Dam,  of  course.  Well,  that  would 
be  a  very  nice  occupation,  Ninian.  Rather  different,  of 
course,  from  the  Diplomatic  Service  ...  or  the  Church 
.  .  .  but  still,  very  nice,  very  nice!  And  profitable,  I'm 
told!  .  .  ." 


2 

"Anyhow,"  said  Ninian,  when  he  had  related  the  story 
of  his  uncle's  views,  "I'm  going  to  be  an  engineer,  no 
matter  what  Uncle  George  says,  and  I'm  not  going  to  be 
a  parson  and  I'm  not  going  to  be  a  blooming  ambassador, 
and  I'm  not  going  into  parliament  to  make  an  ass  of 
myself!  .  .  ." 

Ninian 's  chief  horror  was  of  "making  an  ass"  of  him- 
self. It  seemed  that  there  was  less  likelihood  of  him  doing 
this  at  engineering  than  at  anything  else. 

"And  a  very  good  engineer  you'll  be,"  Gilbert  said 


CHANGING  WINDS  49 

encouragingly.  "You're  always  messing  about  with  the 
insides  of  things,  and  I  can't  see  what  good  that  habit 
would  be  to  an  ambassador,  or  a  parson,  and  anyhow  you 
can't  speak  French  for  toffee,  and  that's  the  principal  thing 
an  ambassador  has  to  do!  Well,  Quinny,"  he  continued, 
turning  to  Henry,  * '  what  about  you  ? ' ' 

"I  used  to  think  I'd  like  to  be  a  clergyman,"  Henry 
answered. 

"Oh,  did  you?  .  .  .'' 

"And  then,"  he  went  on  rapidly,  "I  thought  I'd  like  to 
be  an  actor!  ..." 

They  rose  at  him  simultaneously.  "A  what?"  they 
shouted. 

"An  actor,"  he  repeated. 

They  gaped  at  him  for  a  few  moments  without  speaking. 
Then  Ninian  expressed  their  views.  "You're  balmy!"  he 
said. 

*  *  Clean  off  your  chump ! ' '  Gilbert  added. 

*  *  It  seems  an  odd  choice, ' '  Roger  said,  quietly. 

Henry  blushed.  "Of  course,"  he  hurried  to  say,  "I've 
given  up  the  idea.  It  was  just  a  notion  that  came  into  my 
head!" 

He  went  on  to  say  that  as  Gilbert  had  resolved  to  be  a 
writer,  he  did  not  see  any  reason  why  he  should  not  be- 
come one  too.  "I've  read  an  awful  lot  of  books,"  he  said, 
"so  I  daresay  I  could  write  one.  I  used  to  write  things 
when  I  was  a  youngster,  just  like  you,  Gilbert ! ' ' 

They  gazed  dubiously  at  Henry.  A  fellow  who  could 
make  such  choices  of  profession  ...  a  parson  or  an  actor 
.  .  .  was  a  rum  bird,  in  their  opinion,  and  they  told  him 
so.  Gilbert  said  that  the  conjunction  of  actor  with  parson 
showed  that  all  Henry  cared  about  was  the  chance  to  show 
off.  "All  you  want  is  to  get  yourself  up,"  he  said.  "If 
you  were  a  parson,  you  could  get  yourself  up  in  a  sur- 
plice! .  .  ." 

"He'd  turn  High  Churchman,"  Roger  interrupted, 
"and  trot  about  in  chasubles  and  copes!  ..." 


50  CHANGING  WINDS 

"And  if  he  were  an  actor,  he  could  get  himself  up  in 
terrific  style!  ..."  Gilbert  continued. 

Henry  got  up  and  walked  away  from  them.  "It  isn't 
fair,"  he  said,  as  he  went,  "to  chip  me  like  that.  I'm  not 
going  to  be  a  parson  and  I'm  not  going  to  be  an 
actor!  .  .  ." 

Gilbert  followed  him  and  brought  him  back  to  the 
council. 

"All  right,  Quinny,"  he  said,  "we  won't  chip  you  any 
more.  Only,  don't  talk  like  a  soppy  ass  again,  will  you? 
Sit  down  and  listen  to  me!  ..." 

He  forced  Henry  to  sit  beside  him  and  then  he  proceeded 
to  plan  their  lives  for  them. 

"We'll  all  go  to  Cambridge,"  he  said.  "That's  settled. 
I  arranged  that  before,  didn't  I?  Well,  we  all  go  to  the 
same  college,  and  we  all  promise  to  swot  hard.  We've  got 
to  Do  Well,  d'ye  hear?"  He  said  "do  well"  as  if  each 
word  had  a  capital  letter.  "We've  got  to  be  the  Pride  of 
our  College,  d'ye  hear,  and  work  so  that  the  dons  will  shed 
tears  of  joy  when  they  hear  our  names  mentioned.  I  draw 
the  particular  attention  of  Ninian  Graham  to  what  I  am 
saying,  and  I  warn  him  that  if  he  goes  on  whittling  a  stick 
while  I'm  talking,  I  shall  clout  his  fat  head  for  him.  I 
also  trust  that  our  young  friend,  Quinny,  will  make  up  his 
mind  to  work  hard.  He's  Irish,  of  course,  and  we  must 
make  allowances  for  him !  .  .  . " 

There  was  almost  a  row  when  Gilbert  said  that,  and  it 
was  not  completely  averted  until  Gilbert  had  admitted  that 
the  English  had  their  faults. 

"I  need  not  say  anything  on  the  subject  of  hard  work 
to  our  young  friend,  Roger,"  Gilbert  continued,  when  the 
peace  was  restored,  "beyond  warning  him  of  the  danger  of 
getting  brain-fever.  That's  all  I  have  to  say  about  that. 
We're  friends,  we  four,  and  we've  got  to  do  each  other 
credit.  Now,  when  we  come  down  from  Cambridge,  my 
proposal  is  that  we  all  live  together  in  London.  We  can 
take  a  house  and  get  some  old  girl  to  look  after  us.     I  know 


CHANGING  WINDS  51 

one  who'll  do.     She  lives  in  Cornwall,  and  she  can  cook 
.  .  .  like  anything.     Is  that  agreed?" 

"Carried  unanimous,"  said  Ninian. 

"Good  egg!"  Gilbert  said. 


But  the  plan  was  not  carried  out  as  Gilbert  had  made  it. 
He  and  Ninian  and  Roger  Carey  went  to  Cambridge,  but 
Henry  did  not  go  with  them.  It  was  Mr.  Quinn  who  upset 
the  plan.  He  suddenly  gave  notice  to  Rumpell's  that 
Henry  would  not  return  to  the  school. 

You're  getting  to  he  too  English  in  your  ways,  Henry, 
he  wrote  to  his  son,  and  I  want  you  at  home  for  a  while. 
There's  a  young  fellow  called  Marsh  who  can  tutor  you 
until  you  go  to  the  University.  I  met  him  in  Dublin  a 
while  since,  and  I  like  him.  He's  a  hit  cranky,  hut  he's 
clever  and  he'll  teach  you  a  lot  about  Ireland.  He's  up  to 
his  neck  in  Irish  things,  and  speaks  Gaelic  and  wears  an 
Irish  kilt.  At  least  he  used  to  wear  one,  but  he's  left  it  off 
now,  partly  because  he  gets  cold  in  his  knees  and  partly 
because  he's  not  sure  now  that  the  ancient  Irish  ever  wore 
kilts.    I  think  you'll  like  him!  .  .  . 

"My  God,"  said  Gilbert  when  Henry  read  this  letter  to 
him,  "fancy  being  tutored  by  a  chap  who  wears 
petticoats ! " 

"You  ought  to  talk  pretty  plainly  to  your  guv 'nor, 
Quinny!"  Ninian  said.  "I  don't  think  you  ought  to  let 
him  do  that  sort  of  thing.  Here  we've  settled  that  we're 
all  going  to  Cambridge  together,  and  your  guv 'nor  simply 
lumps  in  and  upsets  everything!" 

Henry  declared  that  he  would  talk  to  his  father  and 
compel  him  to  be  sensible,  but  his  attempt  at  compulsion 
was  ineffective.  ]\Ir.  Quinn  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
Henry  was  to  spend  several  months  at  home,  under  the 
tutelage  of  John  IVIarsh,  and  then  proceed  to  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Dublin. 


62  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Trinity  College,  Dublin!"  Henry  exclaimed.  "But  I 
want  to  go  to  Cambridge !  .  .  . " 

"Well,  you  can't  go  then.  You'll  go  to  T.C.D.  or  you'll 
go  nowhere.  I'm  a  T.C.D.  man,  an'  your  gran 'da  was  a 
T.C.D.  man,  an'  so  was  his  da  before  him,  an'  a  damned 
good  college  it  is,  too ! "  Mr.  Quinn  had  always  called  his 
father  his  "da"  when  Mrs.  Quinn  was  alive  because  she  dis- 
liked the  word  and  tried  to  insist  on  "papa";  and  now  he 
used  the  word  as  a  matter  of  habit.  * '  What  do  you  want  to 
go  to  an  English  college  for?"  he  demanded.  "You  might 
as  well  want  to  go  to  that  Presbyterian  hole  in  Belfast ! ' ' 

"I  want  to  go  to  Cambridge,"  Henry  replied  a  little 
angrily  and  therefore  a  little  precisely,  "because  all  my 
friends  are  going  there.  They're  going  up  next  year,  and 
I  want  to  go  with  them.    They  're  my  best  friends !  .  .  . " 

"Make  friends  in  Ireland,  then!"  Mr.  Quinn  inter- 
rupted. "You  don't  make  friends  with  Englishmen  .  .  . 
you  make  money  out  of  them.    That's  all  they're  fit  for!" 

He  began  to  laugh  when  he  said  that,  but  Henry  still 
scowled.  "I  hate  to  hear  you  talking  like  that,  father!" 
he  said.     * '  I  know  you  don 't  mean  it.  .  .  . " 

"Don't  I,  begod?  .  .  ." 

"No,  you  don't,  but  even  in  fun,  I  hate  to  hear  you 
saying  it.  I  like  English  people.  I'm  very  fond  of  Gil- 
bert Farlow!  ..." 

"A  nice  fellow!"  Mr.  Quinn  murmured,  remembering 
how  he  had  liked  Gilbert  when  he  had  visited  Rumpell's 
once  to  see  Henry. 

*  *  And  Ninian  Graham  and  Roger  Carey,  I  like  them,  too, 
and  so  do  you.    You  liked  them,  didn't  you?" 

"Very  nice  fellows,  both  of  them,  very  nice  .  .  .  for  all 
they  're  English ! ' ' 

Henry  wanted  to  go  on  .  .  .  to  talk  of  Mrs.  Graham  and 
of  Mary  .  .  .  but  shyness  held  his  tongue  for  him. 

"It's  a  habit  I've  got  into,"  Mr.  Quinn  said,  talking  of 
his  denunciation  of  the  English,  "but  don't  mind  me, 
Henry.    Sure,  I'm  like  all  the  Ulstermen:  my  tongue's 


CHANGING  WINDS  53 

more  bitter  nor  my  behaviour.  All  the  same,  my  son, 
you're  goin'  to  T.C.D.,  an'  that's  an  end  of  it.  T.C.D.'ll 
make  a  man  of  you,  but  Oxford  'ud  only  make  a  snivellin' 
High  Church  curate  of  you  .  .  .  crawlin'  on  your  belly  to 
an  imitation  altar  an'  lettin'  on  to  be  a  Catholic!  ..." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  go  to  Oxford,  father.  I  want  to 
go  to  Cambridge!" 

"It's  all  the  same,  Henry.  Oxford '11  make  a  snivellin' 
parson  out  of  you,  an'  Cambridge '11  turn  you  into  a  snivel- 
lin' atheist.  I  know  them  places  well,  Henry.  I'm  ac- 
quainted with  people  from  both  of  them.  All  the  Belfast 
mill-owners  send  their  sons  there,  so's  they  can  be  made 
into  imitation  Englishmen.  An'  I  tell  you  there's  no 
differs  between  Cambridge  an'  Oxford,  You  crawl  on  your 
belly  to  the  reredos  at  Oxford,  an'  you  crawl  on  your  belly 
to  Darwin  an'  John  Stuart  Mill  at  Cambridge.  They  can't 
do  without  a  priest  of  some  sort  at  them  places,  an'  I'm  a 
Protestant,  Henry,  an'  I  want  no  priest  at  all.  Now,  at 
Trinity  you'll  crawl  on  your  belly  to  no  one  but  your  God, 
an'  you'll  do  damn  little  of  that  if  you're  any  sort  of  man 
at  all!" 

Henry  had  reminded  his  father  of  the  history  and  tradi- 
tion of  T.C.D.,  an  ungracious  institution  which  had  taught 
men  to  despise  Ireland. 

"Well,  you  needn't  pay  any  heed  to  the  Provost,  need 
you,"  Mr.  Quinn  retorted.  "Is  a  man  to  run  away  from 
his  country  because  a  fool  of  a  schoolmaster  hasn't  the  guts 
to  be  proud  of  it?  Talk  sense,  son!  We  want  education* 
in  Ireland,  don't  we,  far  more  nor  any  other  people  want 
it,  an'  how  are  we  goin'  to  get  it  if  all  the  young  lads  go 
off  to  Englan '  an '  let  the  schoolmasters  starve  in  Ireland ! ' ' 

Henry  still  maintained  his  position.  "But,  father,"  he 
said,  "you  yourself  have  often  told  me  that  Dr.  Daniell 
is  an  imitation  Englishman.  ..."  Dr.  Daniell  was  the 
Provost  of  Trinity. 

"He  is,  and  so  is  his  whole  family.  I  know  them  well 
.  .  .  lick-spittles,  the  lot  of  them,  an'  the  lad  that's  comin' 


54  CHANGING  WINDS 

after  him,  oul'  Beattie,  is  no  better  ...  a  half-baked  snob 
...  I'll  tell  you  a  story  about  him  in  a  minute  .  .  .  but  all 
the  same,  it's  not  them  that  matter  ...  it's  the  place  and 
the  tradition  an'  the  feel  of  it  all  .  .  .  do  you  make  me 
out?" 

' '  Yes,  father,  I  know  what  you  mean ! ' ' 

"You'd  be  like  a  foreigner  at  Cambridge  .  .  .  like  one  of 
them  fellows  that  come  from  India  or  Germany  or  places 
like  that  .  .  .  but  at  Trinity  you  'd  be  at  home,  in  your  own 
country,  Henry,  where  people  with  brains  are  badly 
needed ! ' ' 

He  went  on  like  that  until  he  wore  down  Henry's  desire 
to  go  to  Cambridge.  "I'd  rather  you  didn't  go  to  a 
university  at  all,"  he  said,  "than  not  have  you  go  to 
T.C.D." 

"Very  well,  father!"  said  Henry,  consenting. 

"That's  right,  my  son,"  the  old  man  said,  patting  his 
son  on  the  back.  "An'  now  I'll  tell  you  that  yarn  about 
Beattie.    It'll  make  you  split  your  sides!" 

It  appeared  that  INIr.  Quinn  had  dined  at  a  house  in 
Dublin  where  Dr.  Beattie  was  also  a  guest,  and  the  don 
was  telling  tales  as  was  his  custom,  of  his  acquaintances  in 
high  places.  The  poor  old  clergyman  had  a  weakness  for 
the  company  of  kings  and  queens,  and  liked  to  tell  people 
of  what  he  had  said  to  an  emperor  or  of  what  a  prince  had 
said  to  him. 

"I  was  talking  to  my  friend,  the  Queen  of  Spain,  a 
short  time  ago,"  Dr.  Beattie  had  said,  "and  I  made  a  joke 
which  pleased  her  majesty.  It  was  about  my  friend,  the 
Kaiser,  who  was  present  at  the  time.  The  Kaiser  heard 
us  laughing,  her  majesty  and  me,  and  he  came  over  to  ask 
us  why  we  were  laughing  so  heartily,  the  Queen  and  me. 
The  Queen  was  very  embarrassed  because,  of  course,  I  had 
been  making  fun  of  the  Kaiser,  but  I  did  not  lose  my  self- 
possession.  I  turned  to  the  Emperor  and  said,  'Sir,  the 
Queen  and  I  have  known  each  other  for  a  few  moments 
only,  but  already  we  have  a  secret  between  us!"    Th 


1 


CHANGING  WINDS  55 

Kaiser  was  very  tickled  by  my  retort  .  .  .  very  tickled 
.  .  .  and  the  Queen  told  me  afterwards  that  it  was  very 
adroit  of  me  to  get  out  of  it  like  that.  She  said  it  was  my 
Irish  wit!  .  .  ." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Mr,  Quinn  had  interrupted. 
"An'  what  did  your  friend  God  say?"  he  had  demanded 
innocently. 

Mr.  Quinn  sat  back  in  his  chair,  when  he  had  finished 
telling  the  story,  and  roared  loudly  with  laughter.  "You 
ought  to  have  seen  the  oul'  snob  turnin'  red,  white  an' 
blue  with  rage,"  he  shouted  at  Henry.  "Such  a  take- 
down! My  God,  what  a  take-down!  There  he  was,  the 
oul'  wind-bag,  bletherin'  about  his  friend,  the  Queen  of 
Spain,  an'  his  friend,  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  an'  there 
was  me,  just  waitin'  for  him,  just  waitin',  Henry,  an'  the 
minute  he  shut  his  gob,  I  jumped  in,  an'  says  I  to  him, 
'An'  what  did  your  friend  God  say?'  By  the  Holy  0, 
that  was  a  good  one !  I  never  enjoyed  myself  so  much  as 
I  did  that  night,  an'  everybody  else  that  was  there  was 
nearin'  burstin'  with  tryin'  not  to  laugh.  Do  you  mind 
Lady  Galduff?" 

"Yes,  father!" 

"You  mind  her  rightly,  don't  you?  Well,  when  you  go 
up  to  Dublin,  you're  to  call  on  her,  do  you  hear?  Never 
mind  about  her  manners.  Ask  her  to  tell  you  about  me 
an'  Dr.  Beattie  .  .  .  the  way  I  asked  him  about  his  friend 
God.    Oh,  Holy  0!  .  .  ." 

He  could  proceed  no  further,  for  his  sides  were  shaking 
with  laughter  and  the  tears  were  streaming  down  his 
cheeks  and  his  cheeks  were  the  colour  of  beetroot. 

"You'll  hurt  yourself,  father,"  said  Henry,  "if  you 
laugh  like  that!" 


•'Of  course,"  said  Mr.  Quinn,  after  a  while,  "the  man's 
a  great  scholar,  an'  I  mebbe  did  wrong  to  take  him  down 


56  CHANGING  WINDS 

like  that.  But  I  couldn't  help  it,  Henry.  You  see,  he's 
always  makin'  little  of  Irish  things,  an'  I  have  no  use  for 
a  man  like  that.  Not  but  what  some  people  think  too  much 
of  Ireland  an'  too  little  of  other  places.  Many's  a  time  I 
get  ragin'  mad  when  I  hear  some  of  the  Nationalists 
bleatin'  about  Ireland  as  if  a  bit  of  bog  in  the  Atlantic 
were  worth  the  rest  of  the  world  put  together.  Do  you 
know  what,  I'm  goin'  to  say  somethin'  that'll  surprise 
you.  I  don't  believe  Irishmen '11  think  properly  about 
Ireland  'til  they  stop  thinkin'  about  it  altogether.  We're 
too  self-conscious.  "We  haven't  enough  pride  an'  we've 
too  much  conceit.  That's  the  truth.  You  daren't  say  a 
word  of  criticism  about  Ireland  for  fear  you'd  have  the 
people  jumpin'  down  your  throat — an'  that's  a  sign  of 
weakness,  Henry.  Do  you  know  why  the  English  are  as 
strong  as  they  are?  It's  because  they'll  let  you  criticise 
them  as  much  as  you  like,  an'  never  lose  their  temper  with 
you.  The  only  time  I  ever  knew  them  to  be  flabby  and 
spineless  was  when  the  Boer  "War  was  on  ...  an'  they'd 
scream  in  your  face  if  you  didn't  say  they  were  actin' 
like  angels.  They  were  only  like  that  then,  but  we're  like 
it  all  the  time.  The  fools  don't  know  that  the  best  patriot 
is  the  man  that  has  the  courage  to  own  up  when  his  coun- 
try's in  the  wrong!  ..." 

Mr.  Quinn  suddenly  sat  up  stiffly  in  his  seat  and  gape 
at  his  son  for  a  few  moments. 

"Begod,  Henry,"  he  said,  "I'm  preachin'  to  you! 

"Yes,  father,  you  are,"  Henry  replied.  "But  I  don't 
mind.    It's  rather  interesting!" 

But  the  force  had  gone  out  of  Mr.  Quinn.  The  though 
that  he  had  been  preaching  a  sermon,  delivering  a  speech 
filled  him  with  self-reproach. 

*  *  I  never  meant  to  start  off  like  that, ' '  he  said.  * '  I  only 
meant  to  tell  you  what  was  in  my  mind.  You  see,  Henry, 
I  love  Ireland  an'  I  want  to  see  her  as  fine  as  ever  she 
was  .  .  .  but  she'll  never  be  fine  again  'til  she  gets  back 


1- 

i 
i 


CHANGING  WINDS  57 

her  pride  an'  her  self-respect.  The  English  people  have 
stolen  that  from  us  .  .  .  yes,  they  have,  Henry!  I  knew 
Arthur  Balfour  when  he  was  a  young  man  ...  I  liked 
him  too  .  .  .  but  I'll  never  forget  that  it  was  him  that 
turned  us  into  a  nation  of  cadgers.  I'm  not  much  of  a 
thinker,  Henry,  but  the  bit  of  brain  I  have '11  be  used  for 
Ireland,  whatever  happens.  You've  got  more  brains  than 
I  have,  an'  I'd  like  you  to  use  them  for  Ireland,  too." 


*  *  This  is  the  way  I  look  at  things, ' '  Mr.  Quinn  said  later 
on.  **The  British  people  are  the  best  people  in  the  world, 
an'  the  Irish  people  are  the  best  people  in  the  British  Em- 
pire, an '  the  Ulster  people  are  the  best  people  in  Ireland ! ' ' 
He  glanced  about  him  for  a  few  moments  as  if  he  were 
cogitating,  and  then  he  gave  a  chuckle  and  winked  at  his 
son.  "An'  begod,"  he  said,  "I  sometimes  think  I'm  the 
best  man  in  Ulster ! ' '  He  burst  out  laughing  when  he  had 
finished.  "Ah,"  he  said,  half  to  himself,  as  he  stroked 
his  fine  beard,  "I'm  the  quare  oul'  cod,  so  I  am!" 

"All  the  same,"  he  went  on,  speaking  soberly,  "I'm  not 
coddin'  entirely.  The  Irish  have  plenty  of  brains,  but 
they  haven't  any  discipline,  an'  brains  are  no  good  unless 
you  can  control  them.  We  need  knowledge  and  experience, 
Henry,  more  nor  anything  else,  an'  the  more  knowledge  we 
bring  into  the  country,  the  better  it'll  be  for  us  all.  Too 
much  imagination  an'  not  enough  knowledge  .  .  .  that's 
what's  the  matter  with  us.  The  English  have  knowledge, 
but  they  've  small  imagination !  .  .  .  I  declare  to  my  good- 
ness, the  best  thing  that  could  happen  to  the  two  of  us,  the 
English  and  the  Irish,  would  be  for  some  one  to  pass  a  law 
eompellin'  every  Irishwoman  to  marry  an  Englishman,  an' 
every  Englishwoman  to  marry  an  Irishman.  We'd  get 
some  stability  into  Ireland  then  ...  an'  mebbe  we'd  get 
some  intelligence  into  England." 


68  CHANGING  WINDS 


Henry  acquiesced  in  his  father's  wishes,  but  he  did  so 
reluctantly.  Gilbert's  plan  for  their  future  had  attracted 
him  greatly.  He  saw  himself  passing  pleasant  years  at 
Cambridge  in  learning  and  in  argument.  There  was  to  be 
scholarship  and  company  and  curiosity  and  enquiry.  They 
were  to  furnish  their  minds  with  knowledge  and  then  they 
were  to  seek  adventures  in  the  world :  a  new  order  of  Mus- 
keteers: Athos,  Porthos,  Aramis  and  D'Artagnan.  .  .  . 
He  let  the  names  of  the  Musketeers  slide  through  his  mind 
in  order,  wondering  which  of  them  was  his  prototype  .  .  . 
but  he  could  not  find  a  resemblance  to  himself  in  any  of 
them.  He  felt  that  he  would  shrink  from  the  deeds  which 
they  sought.  .  .  .  His  mind  went  back  again  to  thoughts  of 
Cambridge.  At  all  events,  in  the  tourneys  of  the  mind  his 
part  would  be  valiant.  He  would  never  shrink  from  com- 
bat with  an  intellect.  .  .  .  He  supposed  it  would  be  possi- 
ble to  do  at  T.C.D.  some  of  what  he  had  proposed  to  do 
at  Cambridge,  but  somehow  T.C.D,  did  not  interest  him. 
It  mattered  as  little  to  him  as  a  "Welsh  University.  It  had 
no  hold  whatever  on  his  mind.  He  knew  that  it  was  on 
the  level  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  but  that  knowledge  did 
not  console  him.  "It  doesn't  matter  in  the  way  that  they 
do, ' '  he  said  to  himself,  and  then  he  remembered  something 
that  Gilbert  Farlow  had  said.  "T.C.D.  isn't  Irish  in  the 
way  that  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  English.  It's  in  Ire- 
land, but  it  isn  't  of  Ireland ! ' '  Gilbert  could  always  get  at 
the  centre  of  a  thing.  "Oxford  and  Cambridge  have  lots 
of  faults,"  Gilbert  had  said,  "but  they're  English  faults. 
T.C.D.  has  lots  of  faults,  but  they're  not  Irish  faults. 
Do  you  see  what  I  mean,  Quinny  ?  It 's  ...  it 's  like  a  gar- 
rison in  an  unfriendly  country  .  ,  .  like  .  .  .  what  d'ye 
call  it?  .  .  .  that  thing  in  Irish  history  .  .  .  the  Pale! 
That's  it!  It's  the  Pale  still  going  on  being  a  Pale  long 
after  the  need  for  it  had  ceased.    I  don 't  think  that  kind  of 


CHANGING  WINDS  59 

place  is  much  good  to  Irishmen.    You'd  better  come  to 
Cambridge!  ..." 

"I  can't,  Gilbert.  My  father's  set  his  heart  on  my  go- 
ing to  Trinity,  and  I  must  go.  I'd  give  the  world  to  go 
with  you  and  Ninian  and  Roger,  but  I'll  have  to  do  what 
he  wants.  Anyhow,  I  can  join  you  in  London  when  you 
come  down,  and  we  can  spend  our  holidays  together.  I'll 
get  my  father  to  ask  you  all  to  Ireland  the  first  vac.  after 
you've  gone  up,  and  perhaps  Mrs.  Graham '11  ask  us  all  to 
Boveyhayne.  ..." 


Remembering  what  he  had  said  to  Gilbert  about  Bovey- 
hayne, he  remembered  Mary  Graham.  He  had  not  seen 
her  since  he  had  been  to  Boveyhayne  at  Easter,  but  he  had 
written  several  times  to  her,  lengthy  letters,  and  had  re- 
ceived short,  shy  replies  from  her;  and  sometimes  he  had 
tried  to  induce  Ninian  to  talk  about  her.  But  "She  isn't 
a  bad  little  flapper ! ' '  was  all  that  Ninian  would  say  of  his 
sister,  and  there  was  little  comfort  to  be  derived  from  that 
speech.  Now,  standing  here  in  this  window-comer,  look- 
ing over  the  fields  that  stretched  away  to  the  Antrim  moun- 
tains, Henry  felt  that  Mary  was  slipping  swiftly  out  of  his 
life.  It  might  be  a  very  long  time  before  he  saw  her  again. 
.  .  .  How  beautiful  she  had  looked  that  day  when  she  stood 
on  Whitcombe  platform  and  waved  her  hand  to  him  as  the 
train  steamed  out  of  the  station!  He  must  marry  her. 
Mrs.  Graham  rmist  ask  him  to  spend  the  next  summer  at 
Boveyhayne  so  that  he  could  meet  Mary  again.  Anyhow 
he  would  write  to  her.  He  would  tell  her  all  he  was  doing. 
He  would  describe  his  life  at  Trinity  to  her.  He  would 
remind  her  continually  of  himself,  and  perhaps  she  would 
not  forget  him.  Girls,  of  course,  were  very  odd  and  they 
changed  their  minds  an  awful  lot.  Ninian  might  invite 
some    chap    from    Cambridge    to    Boveyhayne.  .  .  .  That 


60 


CHANGING  WINDS 


would  be  like  Ninian,  to  go  and  spoil  everything  without 
thinking  for  a  moment  of  what  he  was  doing.  ...  If  only 
Mary  and  he  were  a  few  years  older,  they  could  become  for- 
mally engaged,  and  then  everything  would  be  all  right,  but 
Mary  was  so  young  .  .  . 


THE  FIFTH  CHAPTER 

1 

Soon  after  Henry  had  returned  to  Ballymartin,  John  Marsh 
came  to  Mr.  Quinn's  house  to  prepare  him  for  Trinity. 
"He'll  put  you  in  the  way  of  knowin'  more  about  Ireland 
nor  I  can  tell  you,  Henry,"  Mr.  Quinn  said  to  his  son  on 
the  evening  before  Marsh  arrived,  "an'  a  lot  more  nor 
you'll  learn  at  Rumpell's,  or,  for  that  matter,  at  Trinity." 

"Then  why  do  you  want  me  to  go  to  Trinity?"  Henry 
asked,  still  unable  to  conceal  his  disappointment  at  not  be- 
ing sent  to  Cambridge  with  his  friends. 

"I've  told  you  that  already,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied  firmly, 
closing  his  lips  down  tightly.  "I  want  you  to  have  Irish 
friends  as  well  as  English  friends,  and  I've  learned  this 
much  from  livin',  that  a  man  seldom  makes  friends  .  .  . 
friends,  mind  you  .  .  .  after  he's  twenty -five.  You  only 
make  acquaintances  after  that  age.  I'd  like  well  to  think 
there  were  people  in  Ireland  that  had  as  tight  a  hold  on 
your  friendship,  Henry,  as  Gilbert  Farlow  and  them  other 
lads  have.  .  .  .  An'  there's  another  thing,"  he  went  on, 
leaning  forward  as  he  spoke  and  wagging  his  forefinger  at 
Henry.  "If  you  go  to  Trinity  with  a  kindly  feelin'  for 
Ireland,  it'll  be  something  to  think  there's  one  man  in  the 
place  that  has  a  decent  thought  for  his  country  an'  isn't 
an  imitation  Englishman.  Who  knows  what  good  you 
might  do  there?"  He  let  his  speculations  consume  him. 
"You  might  change  the  character  of  the  whole  college.  You 
.  .  .  you  might  make  it  Irish.  You  .  .  .  you  might  be  the 
means  of  turnin'  the  Provost  into  an  Irishman  an'  start  him 
takin'  an  interest  in  his  country.  The  oul'  lad  might  turn 
Fenian  an'  get  transported  or  hung!  ..." 

"When  he  had  ceased  to  speculate  on  what  might  happen 

61 


62  CHANGING  WINDS 

if  Henry  began  an  Irish  crusade  in  Trinity,  he  spoke  again 
of  Marsh. 

''You'll  like  him,"  he  said.  "I  know  you  will.  He's  a 
bit  off  his  head,  of  course,  but  that 's  neither  here  nor  there. 
The  man's  a  scholar  an'  I  think  he  writes  bits  of  poetry. 
I  've  never  seen  any  of  his  pieces,  but  somebody  told  me  he 
wrote  things.     I  'd  like  well  to  have  a  poet  in  the  house  1 ' ' 

"Is  he  a  Catholic?"  Henry  asked. 

His  father  nodded  his  head.  "An'  very  religious,  too,  I 
believe, ' '  he  said.  '  *  Still,  that 's  neither  here  nor  there.  I 
met  him  up  in  Dublin.  Ernest  Harper  told  me  about 
him!" 

Ernest  Harper  was  the  painter-poet  who  had  influenced 
so  many  young  men  in  Ireland,  and  Mr.  Quinn  had  come 
into  the  circle  of  his  friends  through  the  Irish  co-opera- 
tive movement.  He  had  made  a  special  visit  to  Dublin 
to  consult  Harper  about  the  education  of  his  son,  tell- 
ing him  of  his  desire  that  Henry  should  have  a  strong  na- 
tional sense  .  .  .  "but  none  of  your  damned  theosophy, 
mind!  ..."  and  Harper  had  recommended  John  Marsh  to 
him.  Marsh  had  lately  taken  his  B.A.  degree  and  he  was 
anxious  to  earn  money  in  circumstances  that  would  enable 
him  to  proceed  to  his  M.A. 

"That  lad '11  do  rightly,"  said  Mr.  Quinn,  and  he  ar- 
ranged to  meet  Marsh  in  the  queer,  untidy  room  in  Mer- 
rion  Square  where  Harper  edited  his  weekly  paper.  "He 
has  the  walls  of  the  place  covered  with  pictures  of  big 
women  with  breasts  like  balloons,"  Mr.  Quinn  said  after- 
wards when  he  tried  to  describe  Ernest  Harper's  office, 
"an'  he  talks  to  you  about  fairies  'til  you'd  near  believe  a 
leprechaun  'ud  hop  out  of  the  coalscuttle  if  you  lifted  the 
lid!" 

Soon  afterwards,  they  met,  and  Mr.  Quinn  explained  his 
purpose  to  Marsh.  "I'm  not  a  Nationalist,  thank  God, 
nor  a  Catholic,  thank  God  again,  but  I'm  Irish  an'  I  want 
my  son  to  know  about  Ireland  an'  to  feel  as  Irish  as  I  do 
mvself!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  6S 

Marsh  talked  about  Nationalism  and  Freedom  and  Eng- 
lish Misrule,  but  Mr.  Quinn  waved  his  hands  before  his 
face  and  made  a  wry  expression  at  him.  **A11  your  talk 
about  the  freedom  of  Ireland  is  twaddle,  John  Marsh  .  .  . 
if  you  don't  mind,  I'll  begin  callin'  you  John  Marsh  this 
minute  ...  an'  I  may  as  well  tell  you  I  don't  believe  in 
the  tyranny  of  England.  The  English  aren't  cruel — 
they're  stupid.  That's  what  they  are — Thick!  As  thick 
as  they  can  be,  an'  that's  as  thick  as  God  thinks  it's  de- 
cent to  let  any  man  be!  But  they're  not  cruel.  They  do 
cruel  things  sometimes  because  they  don't  know  any  bet- 
ter, an'  they  think  they're  doin'  the  right  things  when 
they're  only  doin'  the  stupid  thing.  That's  where  we 
come  in!  Our  job  is  to  teach  the  English  how  to  do  the 
right  thing,"  They  smiled  at  him.  "An'  I'm  not  cod- 
din,'  "  he  went  on.  "I  mean  every  word  I  say.  It's  not 
Home  Rule  for  Ireland  that's  needed — it's  Irish  Eule  for 
England ;  an'  I'll  maintain  that  'til  my  dyin'  day.  .  .  .  But 
that's  neither  here  nor  there.  I  think  you're  a  fool,  John 
Marsh,  to  go  about  dreamin'  of  an  Irish  Republic  .  .  . 
you  don't  mind  me  callin'  you  a  fool,  do  you?  .  .  .  but 
you  love  Ireland,  and  I'd  forgive  a  man  a  great  deal  for 
that,  so  if  you'll  come  an'  be  tutor  to  my  son,  I'll  be 
obliged  to  you!" 

And  John  Marsh,  smiling  at  Mr.  Quinn,  had  consented. 

"That's  right,"  Mr.  Quinn  said,  gripping  the  young 
man's  hand  and  wringing  it  heartily.  "I  like  him,"  he 
added,  turning  to  Ernest  Harper,  "an'  he'll  be  good  for 
Henry,  an'  I  daresay  I'll  be  good  for  him.  You've  an  aw- 
ful lot  of  slummage  in  your  skull,"  he  continued,  ad- 
dressing IMarsh  again,  "but  begod  I'll  clear  that  out!" 

"Slummage?"  Llarsh  asked  questioningly. 

"Aye.    Do  you  not  know  what  slummage  is?" 

He  described  it  as  a  heap  of  steamy,  flabby  grain  that  is 
rejected  by  distillers  after  the  spirit  has  been  extracted  from 
it.  "An'  it's  only  fit  to  feed  pigs  with,  "he  said,  ending 
his  description.    "An'  the  kind  of  stuff  you're  lettin'  out  of 


64  CHANGING  WINDS 

you  now  is  only  fit  for  pub-patriots.    How  soon  can  you 
come  to  Ballymartin.     The  sooner  the  better!" 

He  tried  to  drop  the  discussion  of  politics,  but  was  so 
fond  of  it  himself  that  before  he  had  settled  the  date  of 
Marsh's  appearance  at  Ballymartin,  he  was  in  the  middle  of 
another  discussion.  His  head  was  full  of  theories  about 
Ireland  and  about  the  world,  and  he  loved  to  let  his  the- 
ories out  of  his  head  for  an  airing.  He  very  earnestly  de- 
sired to  keep  Ireland  different  from  England.  ''Ireland's 
the  'country'  of  this  kingdom,  an'  England's  the  'town,'  " 
he  sometimes  said,  or  when  his  mood  was  bitter,  he  would 
say  that  he  wished  to  preserve  Ireland  as  a  place  in  which 
gentlemen  could  live  in  comfort,  leaving  England  to  be  the 
natural  home  of  manufacturers  and  mill-owners. 

"But  it's  no  good  talkin'  of  separatin'  the  two  coun- 
tries," he  said  to  Marsh,  "an'  it's  no  good  talkin'  of 
drivin'  the  English  out  of  Ireland  because  you  can't  tell 
these  times  who  is  English  an'  who  is  Irish.  We've  min- 
gled our  blood  too  closely  for  any  one  to  be  able  to  tell 
who's  what.  If  you  started  clearin'  out  the  English,  you'd 
mebbe  clear  me  out,  for  my  family  was  planted  here  by 
William  of  Orange  .  .  .  an' the  damnedest  set  of  scoundrels 
they  were,  too,  by  all  accounts!  ...  an'  mebbe.  Marsh, 
you  yourself  'ud  be  cleared  out!  .  .  .  Aye,  an'  you,  too, 
Ernest  Harper,  for  all  you're  waggin'  your  oul'  red  beard 
at  me.    You're  Scotch,  man,  Scotch,  to  the  backbone !  .  .  ." 

Harper  rose  at  him,  wagging  his  red  beard,  and  filling 
the  air  with  terrible  prophecies !  .  .  . 

"Ah,  quit,  man!"  said  Mr.  Quinn,  and  he  turned  and 
winked  at  IMarsh.  "Do  you  know  what  religion  he  is?" 
he  said,  pointing  his  finger  at  Harper.  "He's  a  Noncon- 
formin'  Theosophist ! "    And  he  roared  at  his  own  joke. 

"You  can  no  more  separate  the  destinies  of  England  an' 
Ireland  in  the  world,"  he  went  on,  "nor  you  can  separate 
the  waters  of  the  Liffey  an'  the  Mersey  in  the  Irish  Sea. 
Bedam,  if  you  can!" 

Mr.  Quinn  liked  to  throw  out  these  aphorisms,  and  he 


CHANGING  WINDS  66 

spent  a  great  deal  of  time  in  inventing  them.  Once  he 
flung  a  company  of  Dublin  gossips  into  a  rage  because  he 
declared  that  Dublin  was  called  "the  whispering  gallery" 
and  "the  city  of  dreadful  whispers"  because  it  was  popu- 
lated by  the  descendants  of  informers  and  spies.  That,  he 
declared,  was  why  Dublin  people  were  so  fond  of  tittle- 
tattle  and  tale-bearing  and  scandal-mongering.  "The 
English  hanged  or  transported  every  decent-minded  man 
in  the  town,  an'  left  only  the  spies  an'  informers,  an'  the 
whole  of  you  are  descended  from  that  breed.  That's  why 
you  can't  keep  anything  to  yourselves,  but  have  to  run 
abut  the  town  tellin'  everybody  all  the  secrets  you  know!" 
And  he  charged  them  with  constantly  giving  each  other 
away.  He  repeated  this  generalisation  about  the  Dublin 
people  to  John  Marsh,  "An'  I  tell  you  what '11  happen 
to  you,  young  fellow,  one  of  these  days.  You'll  be  hanged 
or  shot  or  transported  or  somethin,'  an'  half  the  people  of 
this  place '11  be  runnin'  like  lightnin'  to  swear  an  informa- 
tion against  you,  as  sure  as  Fate.  If  ever  you  think  of 
startin'  a  rebellion,  John  ]\Iarsh.  go  up  to  Belfast  an'  start 
it.  People  '11  be  loyal  to  you  there,  but  in  this  place  they  'd 
sell  you  for  a  pint  of  Guinness!" 

He  was  half  serious  in  his  warning  to  Marsh,  but  .  .  . 
"I  should  be  glad  to  die  for  Ireland,"  Marsh  replied,  and 
it  was  said  so  simply  that  there  was  no  priggishness  in  it. 
"I  can  think  of  no  finer  fate  for  an  Irishman." 

Mr.  Quinn  made  a  gesture  of  impatience.  "It  'ud  be  a 
damn  sight  better  to  live  for  Ireland, ' '  he  exclaimed  angrily. 


Henry  was  in  the  garden  when  John  Marsh  arrived,  ac- 
companied by  J\Ir.  Quinn.  Two  letters  had  come  to  him 
that  morning  from  England — one  from  Gilbert  Farlow  and 
the  other  from  IMary  Graham,  and  he  was  reading  them 
again  for  the  seventh  or  eighth  time  when  the  dogcart 
drove  up  to  the  house. 


66  CHANGING  WINDS 

My  dear  old  ass,  Gilbert  wrote,  why  grizzle  and  grouse 
at  the  Bally  Awful!  That's  my  name  now  for  things 
which  can't  he  helped.  I've  taught  it  to  Ninian,  but  he 
persists  in  calling  it  the  Bloody  Awful,  which  is  low.  He 
says  that  doesn't  matter  because  he  is  low.  Roger  and  I 
have  had  to  clout  his  head  rather  severely  lately  .  .  .  it 
took  two  of  us  to  do  it  .  .  .  Roger  held  his  arms  while  I 
clouted  him  .  .  .  because  he  has  become  fearfully  demo- 
cratic, meaning  by  that,  that  anybody  who  knows  more 
than  his  alphabet  is  an  enemy  of  the  poor.  Roger  and  I 
are  dead  nuts  on  aristocracy  at  present.  We  go  about  say- 
ing, "My  God,  I'm  a  superman!"  and  try  to  look  like 
Bernard  Shaw.  Roger  only  succeeds  in  looking  like  Little 
Lord  Fauntleroy.  But  all  this  is  away  from  the  point, 
which  is,  why  grizzle  and  grouse  at  the  Bally  Awful.  If 
your  papa  will  send  you  to  T.C.D.,  you  must  just  grin 
and  bear  it,  my  lad.  I've  never  met  anybody  from  Trin- 
ity ...  I  suppose  people  do  come  out  of  it  after  they  get 
into  it  ...  but  if  you're  careful  and  remember  the  exam- 
ple of  your  little  friends,  Gilbert  and  Ninian  and  Roger, 
you'll  come  to  no  harm.  And  when  you  do  come  to  Lon- 
don, we'll  try  to  improve  what's  left  of  your  poor  mind. 
It  would  be  splendid  to  go  to  Ballymartin  for  the  summer. 
.Tell  your  papa  that  Ninian  and  Roger  and  I  solemnly 
cursed  him  three  times  for  preventing  you  from  coming  to 
Cambridge,  and  then  gave  him  three  cheers  for  asking  us 
to  Ireland.  The  top  of  the  morning  to  you,  my  broth  of 
a  boy,  and  the  heavens  be  your  bed,  bedad  and  bejabers,  as 
you  say  in  your  country,  according  to  Punch.  Yours  ever, 
Gilbert. 

P.8.    What  about  that  two  bob  you  owe  mef 

Mary's  letter  was  shorter  than  Gilbert's. 

I  think  it's  aw f idly  horrid  of  your  father  not  to  let  you 
go  to  Cambridge  with  Ninian  and  the  others.  I  was  so 
looking  forward  to  going  up  in  May  Week  and  so  was 
Mother.     Of  course,  we  shall  go  anyhow,  but  it  would 


CHANGING  WINDS  67 

have  been  much  nicer  if  you  had  been  there.  You  would 
love  Boveyhayne  if  you  were  here  now.  The  hedges  are 
full  of  wild  roses  and  hazelnuts  and  there  is  a  lovely  lot 
of  valaria  on  our  wall.  Old  Widger  says  there  will  be  a 
lovely  lot  of  blackberries  in  September  if  everything  goes 
well.  I  went  out  in  a  boat  yesterday  with  Tom  Yeo  and  I 
caught  six  dozen  mackerel.  You  would  have  blubbed  if 
you'd  seen  them  flopping  about  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat 
and  looking  so  nice,  and  they  were  nice  to  eat.  I  love 
mackerel,  don't  youf  Mother  sends  her  love.  Do  write 
soon.  I  love  getting  letters  and  you  write  such  nice  ones. 
Your  affectionate  friend,  Mary  Graham.    P.8.    Love. 

Mary  always  signed  herself  his  affectionate  friend.  He 
had  tried  to  make  her  sign  herself  his  loving  sweetheart, 
but  she  said  she  did  not  like  to  do  that. 


He  hurriedly  put  the  letters  away,  and  rose  to  greet 
John  ]\Iarsh  who  came  across  the  lawn  to  him,  talking  to 
Mr.  Quinn. 

''This  is  John  Marsh,  Henry,"  Mr.  Quinn  said  when  he 
came  up  to  him,  and  Henry  and  Marsh  shook  hands  and 
murmured  greetings  to  each  other.  "I'll  leave  you  both 
here  to  get  acquainted  with  each  other,"  Mr.  Quinn  contin- 
ued. "  I  've  a  few  things  to  do  about  the  house ! ' '  He  went 
off  at  once,  leaving  them  together,  but  before  he  had  gone 
far  he  turned  and  shouted  to  Henry,  "You  can  show  him 
through  the  grounds!  He'll  want  to  stretch  his  legs  after 
bein'  so  long  in  the  train!" 

"Very  well,  father!"  Henry  answered,  and  turned  to 
Marsh. 

His  first  impression  of  his  tutor  was  one  of  insignifi- 
cance. Marsh's  clothes  were  cheap  and  ready-made,  and 
they  seemed  to  be  a  size  too  large  for  him.  That,  indeed, 
was  characteristic  of  him,  that  he  should  always  seem  to  be 


68  CHANGING  WINDS 

wearing  things  which  were  too  big  for  him.  His  tie,  too, 
was  rising  over  the  top  of  his  collar.  .  .  .  But  the  sense  of 
insignificance  disappeared  from  Henry's  mind  almost  im- 
mediately after  Marsh  had  offered  his  hand  to  him  and  had 
smiled;  and  following  the  sense  of  insignificance  came  a 
feeling  of  personal  shame  that  was  incomprehensible  to  him 
until  he  discovered  that  his  shame  was  caused  because  he 
had  thought  slightingly  of  Marsh,  even  though  he  had 
done  so  only  for  a  few  moments,  and  had  allowed  his  mind 
to  be  concerned  about  the  trivialities  of  clothes  when  it 
should  have  been  concerned  with  the  nature  of  the  man 
who  wore  them.  Henry's  mind  was  oddly  perverse ;  he  had 
been  as  fierce  in  his  denunciation  of  convention  as  ever 
Gilbert  Parlow  had  been,  but  nevertheless  he  clung  to  con- 
ventional things  with  something  like  desperation.  It  was 
characteristic  of  him  that  he  should  palliate  his  submis- 
sion to  the  conventional  thing  by  inventing  a  sensible  ex- 
cuse for  it.  He  would  say  that  such  things  were  too  triv- 
ial to  be  worth  the  trouble  of  a  fight  or  a  revolt,  and  de- 
clare that  one  should  save  one's  energies  for  bigger  bat- 
tles ;  but  the  truth  was  that  he  had  not  the  moral  courage 
to  flout  a  convention,  and  he  had  a  queer,  instinctive  dis- 
like of  people  who  had  the  courage  to  do  so.  .  .  .  He  knew 
that  this  habit  of  his  was  likely  to  distort  his  judgments 
and  make  him  shrink  from  ordeals  of  faith,  and  very  often 
in  his  mind  he  tried  to  subdue  his  cowardly  fear  of  con- 
ventional disapproval  .  .  .  without  success.  But  John 
Marsh  had  the  power  to  conquer  people.  The  gentleness  of 
him,  the  kindly  smile  and  the  look  of  high  intent,  made 
men  of  meaner  motive  feel  unaccountably  ashamed. 

He  was  a  man  of  middle  height  and  slender  build.  His 
high,  broad  brow  was  covered  by  heavy,  rough,  tufty  hair 
that  was  brushed  cleanly  from  his  forehead  and  cut  tidily 
about  the  neck  so  that  he  did  not  look  unkempt.  His  long, 
straight  nose  was  as  large  as  the  nose  of  a  successful  busi- 
ness man,  but  it  was  not  bulbous  nor  were  the  nostrils  wide 
and  distended.    It  was  a  delicately-shaped  and  pointed 


CHANGING  WINDS  6^ 

nose,  with  narrow  nostrils  that  were  as  sensitive  as  the 
nostrils  of  a  racehorse:  an  adventurous,  pointing  nose 
that  would  lead  its  owner  to  valiant  lengths,  but  would 
never  lead  him  into  low  enterprises.  He  had  grey  eyes 
that  were  quick  to  perceive,  so  that  he  understood  things 
speedily,  and  the  kindly,  forbearing  look  in  them  promised 
that  his  understanding  would  not  be  stiffened  by  harsh- 
ness, that  it  would  be  accompanied  by  sympathy  so  keen 
that,  were  it  not  for  the  hint  of  humour  which  they  also  held, 
he  might  almost  have  been  mawkish,  a  sentimentalist  too 
easily  dissolved  in  tears.  His  thick  eyebrows  clung  closely 
to  his  eyes,  and  gave  him  a  look  of  introspection  that  miti- 
gated the  shrewdness  of  his  pointing  nose.  There  was  some 
weakness,  but  not  much,  in  the  full,  projecting  lower  lip 
and  the  slightly  receding  chin  that  caused  his  short,  tight- 
ened upper  lip  to  look  indrawn  and  strained ;  and  the  big, 
ungainly,  jutting  ears  consorted  oddly  with  the  serious 
look  of  high  purpose  that  marked  his  face  in  repose.  It 
was  as  though  Puck  had  turned  poet  and  then  had  turned 
preacher.  One  looked  at  the  fleshy  lower  lip  and  the  jut- 
ting ears,  and  thought  of  a  careless,  impish  creature;  one 
looked  at  the  shapely,  pointing  nose  and  the  kindly,  un- 
flinching eyes,  and  thought  of  a  man  reckless  of  himself  in 
the  pursuit  of  some  fine  purpose.  One  saw  immediately 
that  he  was  a  man  who  could  be  moved  easily  when  his 
sympathies  were  touched  ,  .  .  but  that  he  could  hardly  be 
dissuaded  from  the  fulfilment  of  his  good  intent.  His  Na- 
tionalism was  like  a  cleansing  fire;  it  consumed  every  im- 
pure thing  that  might  penetrate  his  life.  It  was  so  potent 
that  he  did  ridiculous  things  in  asserting  it.  .  .  .  It  was 
typical  of  him  that  he  should  gaelicise  his  name,  and 
equally  typical  of  him  that  he  should  be  undecided  about 
the  correct  spelling  of  "John"  in  the  ancient  Irish  tongue. 
He  had  called  himself  "Sean"  Marsh,  and  then  had  called 
himself  ' '  Shane  "  and  "  Shaun  "  and  "  Shawn. ' '  Once,  for 
a  while,  he  transformed  "John"  into  "Eoin"  and  then, 
tiring  of  it,  had  reverted  to  *  *  Sean. ' '    But  this  restlessness 


YO  CHANGING  WINDS 

over  his  name  was  not  a  sign  of  general  instability  of  pur- 
pose. He  might  vary  in  the  expression  of  his  belief,  but 
the  belief  itself  was  as  immovable  as  the  mountains. 


It  was  said  of  him  that  on  one  occasion  he  had  taken  a 
cheque  to  a  bank  in  Dublin  to  be  cashed.  An  English 
editor  had  printed  one  of  his  poems  and  had  paid  for 
it  .  .  .  and  he  was  not  accustomed  to  receiving  money  for 
his  poems,  which  were  printed  mostly  in  little  Irish  propa- 
ganda journals!  He  had  endorsed  the  cheque  in  Gaelic, 
and  the  puzzled  bank  manager  had  demanded  that  it  should 
be  endorsed  in  English.  .  .  .  Marsh  had  given  him  a  lec- 
ture on  Irish  history  tliat  lasted  for  the  better  part  of  half- 
an-hour  .  .  .  and  then,  because  the  manager  looked  so 
frightened,  he  had  consented  to  sign  his  name  in  English. 


They  left  the  garden  and  walked  slowly  to  the  top  of  an 
ascending  field  where  an  old  farm-horse,  quit  now  of  work, 
grazed  in  peace.  It  raised  its  head  as  they  walked  towards 
it,  and  gazed  at  them  with  blurred  eyes,  and  then  ambled 
to  them.  They  stood  beside  it  for  a  few  moments  while 
Marsh  patted  its  neck  with  one  hand  and  allowed  it  to 
nuzzle  in  the  palm  of  the  other.  "I  love  beasts,"  he  said, 
"Dogs  and  cats  and  birds  and  horses  and  cows  ...  I  think 
I  love  cows  best  because  they've  got  such  big,  soft  eyes  and 
look  so  stupid  and  reproachful  .  .  .  except  that  dogs  are 
very  nice  and  companionable  and  faithful  .  .  .  but  so  are 
cats.  .  .  ." 

' '  Faithful  ?     Cats  ? ' '  Henry  asked. 

"Oh,  yes  .  .  .  quite  faithful  if  they  like  you.  Why 
should  they  be  faithful  if  they  don't?  Poor,  old  chap! 
Poor,  old  chap!"  he  murmured,  thrusting  his  fingers 
through  the  horse's  worn  mane.    "Of  course,  horses  are 


CHANGING  WINDS  71 

very  nice,  too, ' '  he  went  on.  * '  And  birds !  .  .  .  I  suppose 
one  loves  all  animals.  One  has  to  be  very  brutal  to  hurt 
an  animal,  hasn't  one?" 

Henry  laughed.  "The  Irish  are  cruel  to  animals,"  he 
said,  "but  the  English  aren't!" 

Marsh  flushed.  "I've  never  been  in  England,"  he  re- 
plied, looking  away. 

"Never?"  Henry  exclaimed. 

' '  No,  and  I  shall  never  go  there ! '  * 

There  was  a  sudden  ferocity  in  his  voice  that  startled 
Henry.    "But  why?"  he  asked. 

"Why?  ..."  Marsh's  voice  changed  its  note  and  be- 
came quiet  again.  "I'm  Irish,"  he  said.  "That's  why! 
I  don't  think  that  any  Irishman  ought  to  put  his  foot  in 
England  until  Ireland  is  free ! ' ' 

Henry  snapped  at  him  impatiently.  "I  hate  all  that 
kind  of  talk,"  he  said. 

Marsh  looked  at  him  in  astonishment.  "You  hate  all 
.  .  .  what  talk  ? "  he  asked. 

"All  that  talk  about  Ireland  being  free!" 

*  *  But  don 't  you  want  Ireland  to  be  free  ? ' '  Marsh  asked. 

They  had  walked  on  across  the  field  until  they  came  to  a 
barred  gate,  and  Marsh  climbed  on  to  the  top  bar  and 
perched  himself  there  while  Henry  stood  with  his  back 
against  the  gate  and  fondled  the  muzzle  of  the  horse  which 
had  followed  after  them. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  when  you  say  you  want 
Ireland  to  be  free!"  Henry  exclaimed. 

"Don't  know  what  I  mean!  ..."  Marsh's  voice  be- 
came very  tense  again,  and  he  slipped  down  from  the  gate 
and  turned  quickly  to  explain  his  meaning  to  Henry,  but 
Henry  did  not  wait  for  the  explanation.  "No,"  he  inter- 
rupted quickly.  "Of  course,  I  don't  know  much  about 
these  things,  but  I  've  read  some  books  that  father  gave  me, 
and  I've  talked  to  my  friends  .  .  .  one  of  them,  Gilbert 
Farlow,  is  rather  clever  and  he  knows  a  lot  about  politics 
...  he  argues  with  his  father  about  them  .  .  .  and  I  can't* 


72  CHANGING  WINDS 

see  that  there's  much  difference  between  England  and  Ire- 
land. People  here  don't  seem  to  me  to  be  any  worse  off 
than  people  over  there!" 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  being  worse  off  or  better  off," 
Marsh  replied.  "It's  a  question  of  being  free.  The  Eng- 
lish are  governed  by  the  English.  The  Irish  aren't  gov- 
erned by  the  Irish.  That's  the  difference  between  us. 
What  does  it  matter  what  your  condition  is  so  long  as  you 
know  that  you  are  governed  by  a  man  of  your  own  breed 
and  blood,  and  that  at  any  minute  you  may  be  in  his  place 
and  he  in  yours,  and  yet  you'll  be  men  of  the  same  breed 
and  blood?  I'd  rather  be  governed  badly  by  men  of  my 
own  breed  than  be  governed  well  by  another  breed.  ..." 

Henry  remembered  Ulster  and  his  father  and  all  his  kins- 
men scattered  about  the  North  who  had  sworn  to  die  in  the 
last  ditch  rather  than  be  governed  by  Nationalists. 
"That's  all  very  well,"  he  said,  "but  there  are  plenty  of 
people  in  Ireland  who  don't  want  to  be  governed  by  your 
breed,  well  or  bad ! ' ' 

"They'd  consent  if  they  thought  we  had  the  ability  to 
govern  well,"  Marsh  went  on.  "Anyhow,  we  couldn't 
govern  Ireland  worse  than  the  English  have  governed  it ! " 

"  Some  people  think  you  could !  ..." 

But  Marsh  was  in  no  mood  to  listen  to  objections.  "You 
can 't  be  free  until  you  are  equal  \vith  other  people,  and  we 
aren't  equal  with  the  English.  We  aren't  equal  with  any- 
body but  subject  people.  And  they  look  down  on  us,  the 
English  do.  We  're  lazy  and  dirty  and  ignorant  and  super- 
stitious and  priest-ridden  and  impractical  and  .  .  .  and 
comic!  .  .  .  My  God,  comic!  Whenever  I  see  an  Eng- 
lishman in  Ireland,  running  round  and  feeling  superior,  I 
want  to  wring  his  damned  neck  .  .  .  and  I  should  hate  to 
wring  any  one 's  neck. ' ' 

Henry  tried  to  interject  a  remark,  but  Marsh  hurried 
on,  disregarding  his  attempt  to  speak. 

'  *  How  would  they  like  it  if  we  went  over  to  their  country 
and   made    remarks   about   them?"   he  exclaimed.     "My 


CHANGING  WINDS  78 

brother  went  to  London  once  and  he  saw  people  making 
love  in  public  .  .  .  fellows  and  girls  hugging  each  other 
in  the  street  and  sprawling  about  in  the  parks  ...  all 
over  each  other  .  .  .  and  no  one  took  any  notice.  It 
wasn't  decent.  .  .  .  How  would  they  like  it  if  we  went 
over  there  and  made  remarks  about  that?  ..." 

Henry  insisted  on  speaking.  ' '  But  why  should  you  hate 
the  English?"  he  demanded,  and  added,  "I  don't  hate 
them.     I  like  them ! ' ' 

*'I  didn't  say  I  hated  the  English,"  Marsh  replied.  "I 
don't.  I  don't  hate  any  race.  That  would  be  ridiculous. 
But  I  hate  the  belief  that  the  English  are  fit  to  govern  us, 
when  they're  not,  and  that  we're  not  fit  to  govern  our- 
selves, when  we  are.  I'd  rather  be  governed  by  Germans 
than  be  governed  by  the  English!  ..."  Henry  moved 
away  impatiently.  "Yes,  I  would,"  Marsh  continued. 
"At  all  events,  the  Germans  would  govern  us  well.  ..." 

* '  You  'd  hate  to  be  governed  by  Germans ! ' ' 

"  I  'd  hate  to  be  governed  by  any  but  Irishmen ;  but  the 
Germans  wouldn't  make  the  muddles  and  messes  that  the 
English  make!  ..." 

"You  don't  know  that,"  Henry  said. 

But  Marsh  would  not  take  up  the  point.  He  swung  off 
on  a  generalisation.  "There  won't  be  any  peace  or  happi- 
ness in  Ireland, ' '  he  said, ' '  until  the  English  are  driven  out 
of  it.  Even  the  Orangemen  don't  like  them.  They're 
always  making  fun  of  them !  .  .  . " 

Henry  repeated  his  assertion  that  he  liked  the  English, 
conscious  that  there  was  something  feeble  in  merely  re- 
peating it.  He  wished  that  he  could  say  something  as 
forceful  as  Marsh's  statement  of  his  dislike  of  England, 
but  he  was  unable  to  think  of  anything  adequate  to  say. 
"I  like  the  English,"  he  said  again,  and  when  he  thought 
over  that  talk,  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  else  to  say.  How 
could  he  feel  about  the  English  as  John  Marsh,  who  had 
never  lived  in  England,  felt?  How  could  he  dislike  them 
when  he  remembered  Gilbert  Farlow  and  Roger  Carey  and 


74  CHANGING  WINDS 

Ninian  Graham  and  Mrs.  Graham  and  Old  Widger  and 
Tom  Yeo  and  Jim  Rattenbury  .  .  .  and  Mary  Graham. 
His  father  had  always  spoken  contemptuously  of  English- 
men, but  he  had  never  been  moved  by  this  violent  antipathy 
to  them  which  moved  Marsh  .  .  .  and  most  of  his  talk 
against  England  was  only  talk,  intended  to  sting  the  Eng- 
lish out  of  their  complacency  .  .  .  and  he  was  eager  to 
preserve  the  Union  between  the  two  countries.  But  Marsh 
wished  to  be  totally  separate  from  England.  He  was 
vague,  very  vague,  about  points  of  defence,  and  he  boggled 
badly  when  Henry,  trying  to  think  like  a  statesman,  talked 
of  an  Army  and  a  Navy  .  .  .  his  mind  wandered  into  the 
mists  of  Tolstoyianism  and  then  he  ended  by  suggesting  that 
England  would  attend  to  these  matters  in  self-defence.  He 
could  not  satisfy  Henry's  superficial  enquiries  about  the 
possibilities  of  trade  conducted  in  Gaelic  .  .  .  but  he  was 
positive  about  the  need  for  separation,  complete  and  ir- 
remediable separation,  from  England. 

"We're  separated  from  them  physically,"  he  said,  "and 
I  want  us  to  be  separated  from  them  politically  and  spirit- 
ually. They  're  a  debased  people !  .  .  . "  Henry  muttered 
angrily  at  that,  for  his  mind  was  still  full  of  Mary  Graham. 
"They're  a  debased  people  .  .  .  that's  why  I  want  to  get 
free  of  them  .  .  .  and  all  the  debasing  things  in  Ireland 
are  part  of  the  English  taint.  We've  nothing  in  common 
with  them.  They're  a  race  of  factory -hands  and  manu- 
facturers ;  we  're  a  race  of  farmers  and  poets ;  and  you  can 
never  reconcile  us.  All  you  can  do  is  to  make  us  like 
them  ...  or  worse!" 

Henry  remembered  how  his  father  had  fulminated 
against  the  smooth  Englishman  who  had  proposed  to  turn 
Glendalough  into  a  place  like  the  Potteries  or  Wigan. 

"But  isn't  there  some  middle  course?"  he  said  weakly. 
"Isn't  there  some  way  of  getting  at  the  minerals  of  Wick- 
low  without  making  Glendalough  a  place  like  Wigan  ? ' ' 

"Not  if  the  English  have  anything  to  do  with  it,"  Marsh 
answered.    "I  don't  know  what  Wigan  is  like  ...  I  sup- 


CHANGING  WINDS  76 

pose  it's  horrible  .  ,  .  but  it's  natural  to  Englishmen. 
They  trail  that  sort  of  place  behind  them  wherever  they  go. 
Slums  and  sickness  and  fat,  rich  men!  If  they  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  developing  "Wieklow  they'd  make  it 
stink!  ..." 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  Henry  said  wearily,  for  he  soon 
grew  tired  of  arguments  in  which  he  was  an  unequal  par- 
ticipator. "I  like  the  English  and  I  can't  see  any  good 
in  just  hating  them ! ' ' 

"They  found  a  decent,  generous  race  in  Ireland,"  Marsh 
exclaimed,  "and  they've  turned  it  into  a  race  of  cadgers. 
Your  father  admits  that.  Ask  him  what  he  thinks  of  Ar- 
thur Balfour  and  his  Congested  Districts  Board!  ..." 

They  went  back  to  the  house,  and  as  they  went,  they 
talked  of  books,  and  as  they  talked  of  books,  Marsh's  mind 
became  assuaged.  He  had  lately  published  a  little  volume 
of  poems  and  he  spoke  of  it  to  Henry  in  a  shy  fashion, 
though  his  eyes  brightened  and  gleamed  as  he  repeated 
something  that  Ernest  Harper  had  said  of  them  .  .  .  but 
then  Ernest  Harper  always  spoke  kindly  of  the  work  of 
young,  sincere  men. 

"  I  '11  give  you  a  copy  if  you  like, ' '  Marsh  said  to  Henry. 

"Oh,  thank  you!"  Henry  exclaimed.  "I  should  love  to 
have  it.  I  suppose,"  he  went  on,  "it's  very  exciting  to 
have  a  book  published." 

"I  cried  when  I  first  saw  my  book,"  Marsh  answered 
very  simply.  "I  suppose  women  do  that  when  they  first 
see  their  babies !  .  .  . " 

But  Henry  did  not  know  what  women  do  when  they  first 
see  their  babies. 


THE  SIXTH  CHAPTER 

1 

All  through  the  summer,  Henry  and  John  Marsh  worked 
together,  making  Irishry,  as  Marsh  called  it.  They  studied 
the  conventional  subjects  in  preparation  for  T.C.D.  but 
their  chief  studies  were  of  the  Irish  tongue  and  Irish  his- 
tory. Marsh  was  a  Gaelic  scholar,  and  he  had  made  many 
translations  of  Gaelic  poems  and  stories,  some  of  which 
seemed  to  Henry  to  be  of  extraordinary  beauty,  but  most 
of  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  so  thoughtless  that  they  were 
merely  lengths  of  words.  There  appeared  to  be  no  con- 
nexion between  these  poems  and  tales  and  the  life  he  him- 
self led — and  Marsh's  point  was  that  the  connexion  was 
vital.  One  evening,  Henry,  who  had  been  reading  "The 
Trojan  Women"  of  Euripides,  turned  to  Marsh  and  said 
that  the  Greek  tragedy  seemed  nearer  to  him  than  any  of 
the  Gaelic  stories  and  poems.  He  expressed  his  meaning 
badly,  but  what  it  came  to  was  this,  that  the  continuity  of 
life  was  not  broken  in  the  Euripidean  plays:  the  life  of 
which  Henry  was  part  flowed  directly  from  the  life  of 
which  Euripides  was  part;  he  had  not  got  the  sensation 
that  he  was  a  stranger  looking  on  at  alien  things  when  he 
had  read  "The  Trojan  Women."  "I  can  imagine  all  that 
happening  now,"  he  said,  "but  I  can't  imagine  any  of  that 
Gaelic  life  recurring.  I  don't  feel  any  life  in  it.  It's  like 
something  .  .  .  something  odd  suddenly  butting  into 
things  .  .  .  and  then  suddenly  butting  out  again  .  .  .  and 
leaving  no  explanation  behind  it ! " 

He  tried  again,  with  greater  success,  to  explain  what  he 
meant.    "It's  like  reading  topical  references  in  old  books," 

76 


CHANGING  WINDS  77 

he  said.  "They  mean  nothing  to  us  even  when  there  are 
footnotes  to  explain  them!" 

Marsh  had  listened  patiently  to  him,  though  there  was 
anger  in  his  heart.  ' '  You  think  that  all  that  life  is  over  ? ' ' 
he  said,  and  Henry  nodded  his  head. 

"Listen,"  said  Marsh,  taking  a  letter  from  his  pocket, 
' '  here  is  a  poem,  translated  from  Irish,  that  was  sent  to  me 
by  a  friend  of  mine  in  Dublin.  His  name  is  Galway,  and 
I'd  like  you  to  know  him.  Listen!  It's  called  'A  Song 
for  ]\Iary  Magdalene.*  " 

He  read  the  poem  in  a  slow,  crooning  voice  that  seemed 
always  on  the  point  of  becoming  ridiculous,  but  never  did 
become  so. 

O  woman  of  the  gleaming  hair 

(Wild  hair  that  won  men's  gaze  to  thee), 
Weary  thou  turneat  from  the  common  stare. 
For  the  Shuiler  i  Christ  is  calling  thee. 

O  woman  with  the  wild  thing's  heart. 
Old  sin  hath  set  a  snare  for  thee : 
In  the  forest  ways  forespent  thou  art. 
But  the  hunter  Christ  shall  pity  thee. 

O  woman  spendthrift  of  thyself, 
Spendthrift  of  all  the  love  in  thee. 
Sold  unto  sin  for  little  pelf, 
The  captain  Christ  shall  ransom  thee. 

O  woman  that  no  lover's  kiss 

(Tho'  many  a  kiss  was  given  thee) 
Could  slake  thy  love,  is  it  not  for  this 
The  hero  Christ  shall  die  for  thee? 

They  were  quiet  for  a  while,  and  then  Marsh  turned  to 
Henry  and  said,  *  *  Is  that  alien  to  you  ? ' ' 

"No,"  he  answered,  "but  I  did  not  say  that  it  was  all 
alien!  .  .  ." 

* '  Or  this  ? ' '  Marsh  interrupted,  taking  up  the  manuscript 

1  Shuiler :  a  tramp  or  beggar. 


78  CHANGING  WINDS 

again.  "Galway  sent  these  translations  to  me  so  that  I 
might  be  the  first  to  see  thera.  He  always  does  that.  This 
one  is  called  'Lullaby  of  a  Woman  of  the  Iklountain.'  " 

Little  gold  head,  my  house's  candle, 

You  will  guide  all  wayfarers  that  walk  this  country. 

Little  soft  mouth  that  my  breast  has  known, 
Mary  will  kiss  you  as  she  passes. 

Little  round  cheek,  0  smoother  than  satin, 
losa  will  lay  His  hand  upon  you. 

Mary's  kiss  on  my  baby's  mouth, 

Christ's  little  hand  on  my  darling's  cheek  1 

House,  be  still,  and  ye  little  grey  mice. 
Lie  close  to-night  in  your  hidden  lairs. 

Moths  on  the  window,  fold  your  wings. 

Little  black  chafers,  silence  your  humming. 

Plover  and  curlew  fly  not  over  my  house. 
Do  not  speak,  wild  barnacle,  passing  over  this  mountain. 

Things  of  the  mountain  that  wake  in  the  night  time. 
Do  not  stir  to-night  till  the  daylight  whitens. 

"That's  alive,  isn't  it?"  Marsh,  now  openly  angry,  de- 
manded. "Do  you  think  that  song  doesn't  kindle  the 
hearts  of  mothers  all  over  the  world?  ...  I  can  imagine 
Eve  crooning  it  to  little  Cain  and  Abel,  and  I  can  imagine 
a  woman  in  the  Combe  crooning  it  to  her  child!  ..." 
The  Combe  was  a  tract  of  slum  in  Dublin.  "  It 's  universal 
and  everlasting.    You  can 't  kill  that ! '  * 

"Then  why  has  it  got  lost?" 

"It  isn't  lost — it's  only  covered  up.  Our  task  is  to  dig 
it  out.  It's  worth  digging  out,  isn't  it?  The  people  in 
the  West  still  sing  songs  like  that.  Isn't  it  worth  while  to 
try  and  get  all  our  people  to  sing  them  instead  of  singing 
English  music-hall  stuff?  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  79 


It  was  in  that  spirit  that  Marsh  started  the  Gaelic  class 
in  Ballymartin.  "And  the  Gaelic  games,"  he  said  to 
Henry,  '  *  we  11  revive  them  too ! ' '  Twice  a  week,  he  taught 
the  rudiments  of  the  Irish  language  to  a  mixed  class  of 
boys  and  girls,  and  every  Saturday  he  led  the  Ballymartin 
hurley  team  into  one  of  ]\Ir.  Quinn's  fields.  .  .  . 

There  had  been  difficulty  in  establishing  the  mixed 
classes.  The  farmers  and  the  villagers,  having  first  de- 
clared that  Gaelic  was  useless  to  them — "they'd  be  a  lot 
better  learnin'  shorthand!"  said  John  McCracken — then 
declared  that  they  did  not  care  to  have  their  daughters 
"trapesin'  about  the  loanies,  lettin'  on  to  be  learnin'  Irish, 
an '  them  only  up  to  devilment  with  the  lads ! ' '  But  Marsh 
overcame  that  difficulty,  as  he  overcame  most  of  his  diffi- 
culties, by  persistent  attack;  and  in  the  end,  the  Gaelic 
class  was  established,  and  the  Ballymartin  boys  and  girls 
were  set  to  the  study  of  0  'Growney  's  primer.  Henry  was 
employed  as  Marsh's  monitor.  His  duty  was  to  supervise 
the  elementary  pupils,  leaving  the  more  advanced  ones  to 
the  care  of  Marsh.  It  was  while  he  was  teaching  the  Gaelic 
alphabet  to  his  class,  that  Henry  first  met  Sheila  Morgan. 

She  came  into  the  schoolroom  one  night  out  of  a  drift 
of  rain,  and  as  she  stood  in  the  doorway,  laughing  because 
the  wind  had  caught  her  umbrella  and  almost  torn  it  out 
of  her  hands,  he  could  see  the  rain-drops  glistening  on  her 
cheeks.  She  put  the  umbrella  in  a  corner  of  the  room, 
leaving  it  open  so  that  it  might  dry  more  quickly,  and  then 
she  shook  her  long  dark  hair  back  and  wiped  the  rain  from 
her  face.  He  waited  until  she  had  taken  off  her  mackintosh 
and  hung  it  up  in  the  cloakroom,  and  then  he  went  forward 
to  her. 

"Have  you  come  to  join  the  class?"  he  asked,  and  she 
smiled  and  nodded  her  head.  "It's  a  coarse  sort  of  a 
night,"  she  added,  coming  into  the  classroom. 

He  did  not  know  her  name,  and  he  wondered  where  her 


80  CHANGING  WINDS 

home  was.  He  knew  everybody  in  Ballymartin,  and  many 
of  the  people  in  the  country  outside  it,  but  he  had  never 
seen  Sheila  Morgan  before. 

"I  thought  I  might  as  well  come,"  she  said,  "but  I'm 
only  here  for  a  while ! ' ' 

Then  she  did  not  belong  to  the  village.  "Yes?  ..." 
he  said. 

"It's  quaren  dull  in  the  country,"  she  continued,  "an' 
the  classes '11  help  to  pass  the  time.  I  wish  it  was  dancin', 
but!" 

Dancing!  They  had  not  made  any  arrangements  for 
dancing,  though  the  Gaels  were  very  nimble  on  their  feet. 
He  glanced  at  Marsh  reproachfully.  Why  had  Marsh  omit- 
ted to  revive  the  Gaelic  dances  ? 

"Perhaps,"  he  said  to  Sheila,  "we  can  have  dancing 
classes  later  on.  ..." 

"I'll  mebbe  be  gone  before  you  have  them,"  she  an- 
swered. 

' '  How  long  are  you  staying  for  ? "  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know.  I'm  stopping  with  my  uncle  Matthew 
.  .  .it's  him  has  Hamilton's  farm  ...  an'  I'm  stoppin' 
'til  he  knows  how  his  health  '11  be.     He 's  bad.  ..." 

He  remembered  Matthew  Hamilton.  "Is  he  ill?"  he 
said. 

-"Aye.  He's  been  sick  this  while  past,  an'  now  he's 
worse,  an'  my  aunt  Kate  asked  me  to  come  an'  stop  with 
them  to  help  them  in  the  house.  He's  not  near  himself  at 
all.  You'd  think  a  pity  of  him  if  you  seen  the  way  he's 
failed  next  to  nothin'.  ...    Is  it  hard  to  learn  Irish?" 

"You'd  better  come  an'  try  for  yourself,"  he  replied, 
and  then  he  led  her  up  to  Marsh  and  told  him  that  a  new 
pupil  had  come  to  join  the  class.  There  was  some  awk- 
wardness about  names.  .  .  .  "Och,  I  never  told  you  my 
name,"  she  said,  laughing  as  she  spoke.  "Sheila  Mor- 
gan!" she  continued.  "I  live  in  County  Down,  but  I'm 
stayin'  with  my  uncle  Matthew,"  she  explained  to  Marsh. 

"Do  you  know  any  Gaelic  at  all?"  Marsh  asked. 


CHANGING  WINDS  81 

** No,"  she  replied.  "I  never  learned  it.  Are  you  goin' 
to  have  any  dancin'  classes?" 

Henry  insisted  that  they  ought  to  have  had  dancing 
classes  as  well  as  a  hurley  team.  "The  hurley's  all  right 
for  the  boys,"  he  said,  *'but  we've  nothing  for  the 
girls.  ..." 

"But  you'd  want  boys  at  the  dancin'  as  well,"  Sheila 
interrupted.    *  *  I  can 't  bear  dancin '  with  girls ! ' ' 

"No,  of  course  not,"  said  Henry. 

Marsh  considered.  "Who's  to  teach  the  dancing?"  he 
asked,  adding,  "I  can't!" 

"I'd  be  willin'  to  do  that,"  Sheila  said.  "Mebbe  you'd 
join  the  class  yourself,  Mr.  JMarsh  ? ' ' 

Marsh  laughed,  but  did  not  answer. 

"It'll  be  great  value,"  she  went  on.  "There's  nothin* 
to  do  in  the  evenin's  .  ,  .  nothin'  at  all  ...  an'  it's  des- 
pert  dull  at  night  with  nothin'  to  do!  .  .  ." 

"  I  '11  think  about  it, ' '  said  Marsh.  * '  You  can  begin  your 
Gaelic  study  now,"  he  added.  "Mr.  Quinn'll  give  you  a 
lesson!  ..." 


It  was  Jaraesey  McKeown  who  caused  the  decision  to  hold 
the  dancing  classes  to  be  made  as  quickly  as  it  was.  Jame- 
sey  was  one  of  the  pupils  in  the  advanced  section  of  the 
Gaelic  class  ...  a  bright-witted  boy  of  thirteen,  with  a 
quick,  sharp  way.  One  day,  Marsh  and  Henry  had  climbed 
a  steep  hill  outside  the  village,  and  when  they  reached  the 
top  of  it,  they  found  Jamesey  lying  there,  looking  down  on 
the  fields  beneath.  His  chin  was  resting  in  the  cup  of  his 
upturned  palms. 

* '  God  save  you,  Jamesey ! ' '  said  IMarsh,  and  * '  God  save 
you  kindly!"  Jamesey  answered. 

The  greeting  and  the  reply  are  not  native  to  Ulster,  but 
Marsh  had  made  them  pirt  of  the  Gaelic  studies,  and  when- 
ever he  encountered  friends  he  always  saluted  them  so. 


82  CHANGING  WINDS 

His  pupils,  falling  in  with  his  whim,  replied  to  his  salute 
as  he  wished  them  to  reply,  but  the  older  people  merely 
nodded  their  heads  or  said  "It's  a  soft  day!"  or  "It's  a 
brave  day!"  or,  more  abruptly,  "Morra,  Mr.  Marsh!" 
The  Protestants  among  them  suspected  that  the  Gaelic  sal- 
utation was  a  form  of  furtive  Popery.  .  .  . 

They  sat  down  beside  the  boy.  "I  suppose  you'll  be 
leaving  school  soon,  Jamesey?"  Marsh  asked. 

"Aye,  I  will  in  a  while,"  Jamesey  answered. 

"What  class  are  you  in?" 

"  I 'm  a  monitor,  Mr.  Marsh.    I 'm  in  my  first  year !  ..." 

Henry  sat  up  and  joined  in  the  conversation.  "Then 
you're  going  to  be  a  teacher?"  he  said. 

"No,  I'm  not,"  Jamesey  replied.  "My  ma  put  me  in 
for  the  monitor  to  get  the  bit  of  extra  education.  That's 
all!" 

"What  are  you  going  to  be,  Jamesey  ?  A  farmer?"  said 
Marsh. 

"No.    I  wouldn't  be  a  farmer  for  the  world!  ..." 

"But  why?" 

The  boy  changed  his  position  and  faced  round  to  them. 
"Sure,  there's  nothin'  to  do  but  work  from  the  dawn  till 
the  dark,"  he  said,  "an'  you  never  get  no  diversion  at  all. 
I'm  quaren  tired  of  this  place,  I  can  tell  you,  an'  my  ma's 
tired  of  it  too.  She  wudden  be  here  if  she  could  help  it, 
but  sure  she  can't.  It's  terrible  in  the  winter,  an'  the  win' 
fit  to  blow  the  head  off  you,  an'  you  with  nothin'  to  do 
on'y  look  after  a  lot  of  oul*  cows  an'  pigs  an*  things.  I'm 
goin'  to  a  town  as  soon  as  I'm  oul'  enough!  ..." 

They  talked  to  him  of  the  beauty  of  the  country.  .  .  . 

"Och,  it's  all  right  for  a  holiday  in  the  summer,"  he 
said. 

.  .  .  and  they  talked  to  him  of  the  fineness  of  a  farmer's 
life,  but  he  would  not  agree  with  them.  A  farmer's  life 
was  too  hard  and  too  dull.  He  was  set  on  joining  his 
brother  in  Glasgow.  .  .  . 

"What  does  your  brother  do,  Jamesey?"  Marsh  asked. 


CHANGING  WINDS  8S 

"He's  a  barman." 

* '  A  barman ! ' '  they  repeated,  a  little  blankly. 

"Aye.  That's  what  I'm  goin'  to  be  ...  in  the  same 
place  as  him!" 

They  did  not  speak  for  a  while.  It  seemed  to  both  of 
them  to  be  incredible  that  any  one  could  wish  to  exchange 
the  loveliness  of  the  Antrim  country  for  a  Glasgow 
bar.  .  .  . 

"What  hours  does  your  brother  work?"  Marsh  asked 
drily. 

"He  works  from  eight  in  the  mornin'  till  eight  at  night, 
an'  it's  later  on  Saturdays,  but  he  has  a  half -day  a  week 
til  himself,  an'  he  has  all  day  Sunday.  They  don't  drink 
on  Sunday  in  Glasgow!" 

Marsh  smiled.     "Don't  they?"  he  said. 

"It's  long  hours,"  Jamesey  admitted,  "but  he  has  great 
diversion.  D'ye  know  this,  Mr.  Marsh!"  he  continued, 
rolling  over  on  his  side  and  speaking  more  quickly,  "he  can 
go  to  a  music-hall  twice  on  the  one  night  an'  hear  all  the 
latest  songs  for  tuppence.  That's  all  it  costs  him.  He 
goes  to  the  gallery  an'  he  hears  gran',  an'  he  can  go  to 
two  music-halls  in  the  one  night  .  .  .  in  the  one  night,  mind 
you  .  .  .  for  fourpence!  Where  would  you  bate  that? 
You  never  get  no  diversion  of  that  sort  in  this  place  .  .  . 
only  an  oul'  magic-lantern  an  odd  time,  or  the  Band  of 
Hope  singin' songs  about  teetotallers!  ..." 

That  was  the  principal  burden  of  Jamesey 's  complaint, 
that  there  was  no  diversion  in  Ballymartin.  '  *  If  you  were 
to  go  up  the  street  now,"  he  said,  "you'd  see  the  fellas 
Stan 'in'  at  the  corner,  houl'in'  up  the  wall,  an'  wonderin' 
what  the  hell  to  do  with  themselves,  an'  never  gettin'  no 
answer!  ..." 

"Yon  never  hear  noan  of  the  latest  songs  here,"  he  com- 
plained again.  "I  got  a  quare  cut  from  my  brother  once, 
me  singin'  a  song  that  I  thought  was  new,  an'  he  toul'  me 
it  was  as  oul'  as  the  hills.  It  was  more  nor  a  year  oul', 
anyway!  .  .  ," 


84  CHANGING  WINDS 


They  came  away  from  the  hill  in  a  mood  of  depression. 
It  seemed  to  Henry  that  the  Gaelic  Movement  could  never 
take  root  in  that  soil.  What  was  the  good  of  asking  Jame- 
sey  McKeown  to  sing  Gaelic  songs  and  till  the  land  when 
his  heart  was  hungering  for  the  tuppeny  excitements  of  a 
Glasgow  music-hall?  What  would  Jamesey  McKeown 
make  of  Galway  's  translations  ?    Would 

O  woman  of  the  gleaming  hair 

(Wild  hair  that  won  men's  gaze  to  thee). 
Weary  thou  turnest  from  the  common  stare. 
For  the  Shuiler  Christ  is  calling  thee. 

bind  him  to  the  nurture  of  the  earth  when 
What  ho!  she  bumps 

called  him  to  Glasgow? 

"We  must  think  of  something!"  Marsh  was  saying,  but 
Henry  was  busy  with  his  own  thoughts  and  paid  no  heed 
to  him. 

What,  after  all,  had  a  farm  to  offer  a  quick-witted  man 
or  woman?  That  girl,  Lizzie  IMcCamley  of  whom  his  father 
had  spoken  once,  she  had  preferred  to  go  to  Belfast  and 
work  in  a  linen  mill  and  live  in  a  slum  rather  than  continue 
in  the  country;  and  Jamesey  McKeown,  who  was  so  quick 
and  eager  and  anxious  to  succeed,  had  weighed  farms  and 
fields  and  hills  and  valleys  in  the  balance  and  found  them 
of  less  weight  and  value  than  a  Glasgow  bar  and  a  Glasgow 
music-hall.  Henry  remembered  that  his  father  was  more 
interested  in  the  land  than  most  men — and  he  resolved  to 
ask  for  his  opinion.  What  was  the  good  of  all  this  co- 
operation, this  struggle  to  discover  the  best  way  of  making 
the  earth  yield  up  the  means  of  life,  this  effort  to  increase 
and  multiply,  when  nothing  they  could  do  seemed  to  make 
the  work  attractive  to  those  who  did  it?  .  .  . 


CHANGING  WINDS  86 

Marsh  was  still  murmuring  to  him.  "I  see,"  he  was 
saying,  "that  something  must  be  done.  That  girl  .  .  . 
what's  her  name?  .  .  .  Sheila  something?  ..." 

"Sheila  Morgan!"  Henry  said. 

"Yes.  Sheila  Morgan  .  .  .  she  said  something  about 
dancing  classes,  didn't  she?  We'll  start  a  dancing  class 
...  we  '11  teach  them  the  Gaelic  dances !  .  .  . " 

It  suddenly  seemed  funny  to  Henry  that  Marsh  should 
propose  to  solve  the  Land  Problem  .  .  .  the  real  Land 
Problem  ...  by  means  of  dancing  classes. 

"They'll  want  more  than  that,"  he  said.  "They  can't 
a]  ways  be  dancing ! ' ' 

"No,"  Marsh  answered,  "but  we  can  begin  with  that!" 

Marsh's  depression  swiftly  left  him.  He  began  to  specu- 
late on  the  future  of  the  countryside  when  the  Gaelic  re- 
vival was  complete.  There  would  be  Gaelic  games,  Gaelic 
songs,  Gaelic  dances  and  a  Gaelic  literature.  "I  don't  see 
why  we  shouldn't  have  a  theatre  in  every  village,  with 
village  actors  and  village  plays.  .  .  .  There  must  be  a 
great  deal  of  talent  hidden  away  in  these  houses  that  never 
comes  out  because  there  is  no  one  to  bring  it  out.  ...  I 
wish  you  were  older,  Henry,  and  were  quit  of  Trinity. 
You  and  I  .  .  .  and  Galway  ...  of  course,  we  must  have 
Galway  .  .  .  might  start  the  Movement  on  a  swifter  course 
than  it  has  now !  .  .  . "  He  broke  off  and  made  a  gesture 
of  impatience.  "Oh,  my  God,  why  can't  a  man  do  more !" 
he  said. 


Henry  put  the  question  to  his  father,  and  ]\Ir.  Quinn 
considered  it  for  a  while. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  answered,  "what  to  say.  You'd 
think  people  would  find  more  to  interest  them  in  the  land 
than  in  anything  else  .  .  .  but  they  don't.  There's  so 
much  to  do,  an'  it's  so  varied,  an'  you  have  it  all  under 
your  own  eye  .  .  .  you  begin  it  an'  carry  it  on  and  you 
end   it  ...  an'  yet  somehow!  .  .  .  An'  then  the  whole 


86  CHANGING  WINDS 

family  understands  it  and  can  take  an  interest  in  it. 
You'd  think  that  that  would  hold  them.  There  isn't  any 
other  trade  in  the  world  that'll  take  up  a  whole  family  an' 
give  them  all  somethin'  to  talk  about  an'  think  over  an' 
join  in.  But  I've  never  known  a  bright  boy  or  girl  on  a 
farm  that  wasn't  itehin'  to  get  away  from  it  to  a  town !" 

"But  something '11  have  to  be  done,  father!"  Henry 
urged.    *  *  We  must  have  farmers !  .  .  . " 

"Aye,  something '11  have  to  be  done,  but  I'm  damned  if 
I  know  what.  I  suppose  when  they  've  developed  machinery 
more  an'  can  make  transit  easier  .  .  .  but  sometimes  I  half 
think  we'll  have  to  breed  people  for  the  land  .  .  .  thick 
people,  slow-witted  people,  clods  ...  an'  just  let  them 
root  an'  dig  and  grub  an'  .  .  .  an'  breed!"  He  got  up  as 
he  spoke,  and  paced  about  the  room.  "No,  Henry,  I've 
got  no  remedy  for  you!  The  Almighty  God '11  have  to 
think  of  a  plan.    I  can't  !'* 


Sheila  Morgan  did  not  know  any  of  the  ancient  Gaelic 
dances,  nor  did  any  one  in  Ballymartin.  She  knew  how  to 
waltz  and  she  could  dance  the  polka  and  the  schottishe. 
"An'  that's  all  you  need!"  she  said.  There  were  two  old 
women  in  the  village  who  danced  a  double  reel,  and  Paddy 
Kane  was  a  great  lad  at  jigs.  .  .  . 

"Perhaps  later  on,"  Marsh  said,  "we  can  get  some  one 
to  teach  them  Gaelic  dances!" 

And  so  the  classes  began.  Marsh  had  announced  at  the 
Language  class  that  the  first  of  the  Dancing  Classes  would 
be  held  on  the  following  Thursday  .  .  .  and  on  Thursday 
every  boy  and  girl  and  young  man  and  woman  in  Bally- 
martin had  crowded  into  the  schoolroom  where  the  class 
was  to  be  held. 

"There  are  more  here  than  come  to  the  Language  class," 
Marsh  exclaimed  in  astonishment  when  he  entered  the  room. 


CHANGING  WINDS  87 

*  *  Dancing  seems  to  be  more  popular  than  Gaelic, ' '  Henry 
replied. 

"I  don't  know  how  we  shall  teach  them  all,"  Marsh 
went  on.  "I  can't  dance  .  .  .  and  she  can't  possibly  teach 
them  all!" 

.  But  there  was  no  need  to  teach  them  to  dance — they  had 
all  learned  to  dance  ' '  from  their  cradles, ' '  as  some  one  said, 
and  in  a  little  while  the  room  was  full  of  dancing  couples. 

Sheila  Morgan  had  gone  smilingly  to  John  Marsh  as  he 
entered  the  room.  "We're  all  ready,"  she  said,  and 
waited. 

* '  Oh,  yes ! "  he  replied,  a  little  vaguely. 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  few  moments,  and  then  went  on. 
"If  you  were  to  lead  off,"  she  suggested. 

"Me?     But  I  can't  dance!  .  .  ." 

"You  can't  dance!" 

"No,"  he  continued.  "Somehow,  I've  never  learnt  to 
dance ! ' '  She  looked  disappointed.  *  *  I  thought  mebbe  you 
an'  me  'ud  lead  off,"  she  said. 

"I'm  sorry,"  he  replied.  "Perhaps  Mr.  Quinn  can 
dance!  ..." 

Henry  gave  his  arm  to  her  and  they  walked  off,  to  begin 
the  slow  procession  round  the  room  until  all  the  couples 
were  ready. 

"I  think  Mr.  Marsh  is  the  only  one  in  the  place  that 
can't  dance,"  Sheila  said,  as  she  placed  her  hand  on 
Henry's  shoulder. 

He  put  his  arm  round  her  waist  and  they  moved  off  in 
the  dance.    "I  suppose  he  is,"  he  answered. 

7 

He  danced  with  her  several  times.  Her  cheeks  were 
glowing  and  the  lustre  of  her  eyes  was  like  the  sparkle  of 
the  stars.  Her  lips  were  slightly  parted,  and  now  and  then 
her  breath  came  quickly.  As  they  swung  round  and  round, 
she  sometimes  closed  her  eyes  and  then  slowly  opened  them 


88  CHANGING  WINDS 

again.  He  became  aware  of  some  strange  emotion  that  he 
had  never  known  before. 

"I  love  dancin'/'  she  murmured,  half  to  herself. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  scarcely  knowing  that  he  was 
speaking. 

"I  love  dancinV'  she  said  again,  and  again  he  said 
"Yes"  and  no  more.  .  .  . 

He  led  her  to  a  seat  at  the  side  of  the  room  and  sat  down 
on  the  chair  next  to  it.  They  did  not  speak,  but  sat  there 
watching  the  swift  movements  of  the  other  dancers.  IVIarsh 
was  somewhere  at  the  other  end  of  the  room,  looking  on 
...  a  little  puzzled,  a  little  disturbed  .  .  .  but  pleased, 
too,  because  the  dancers  were  pleased.  He  was  wondering 
why  the  interest  in  the  Gaelic  language  was  not  so  strong 
as  the  interest  in  the  waltz.  "A  foreign  dance,  too  .  .  . 
not  Gaelic  at  all!" 

But  Henry  had  forgotten  the  Gaelic  movement,  and  was 
conscious  only  of  the  girl  beside  him  and  her  glowing 
cheeks  and  her  bright  eyes  and  the  softness  of  her.  .  .  . 
She  was  older  than  he  was,  a  couple  of  years  and  he  noticed 
that  she  had  just  "put  up"  her  hair.  It  had  been  hanging 
loosely  when  he  first  saw  her,  and  he  wondered  which  he 
liked  better,  the  loose,  hanging  hair,  or  the  hair  bound 
round  her  head.  Her  slender  white  neck  was  revealed  now 
that  her  hair  was  up,  and  it  was  very  beautiful,  but  he 
thought  that  after  all,  his  first  sight  of  her,  as  she  stood  in 
the  doorway,  the  raindrops  still  on  her  face,  and  flung 
back  the  long,  loose  strands  of  dark  hair  that  lay  about 
her  shoulders  ...  he  still  thought  that  was  the  loveliest 
vision  of  her  he  had  seen.  .  .  . 

Then  he  remembered  ^lary  Graham.  She,  too,  had  long 
loose  hair  that  lay  in  dark  lengths  about  her  shoulders,  and 
her  eyes,  too,  could  shine  .  .  .  but  she  was  a  girl,  and 
Sheila  was  a  woman!  ...  He  was  engaged  to  Mary,  of 
course  .  .  .  well,  was  it  an  engagement?  They  had  been 
sweethearts  and  he  had  told  her  he  loved  her  and  she  had 
said  that  she  would  marry  him  .  .  .  and  all  that  .  .  .  but 


CHANGING  WINDS  89 

they  were  kids  when  that  happened.  Ninian  had  called 
him  a  sloppy  ass!  ...  This  was  different.  His  feeling 
for  Sheila  Morgan  was  different  from  his  feeling  for  Mary 
Graham.  He  had  never  felt  for  any  one  as  he  felt  for 
Sheila.  He  seemed  unaccountably  to  be  more  aware  of 
Sheila  than  he  was  of  Mary.  He  could  not  altogether  un- 
derstand this  difference  of  sensation  .  .  .  but  sometimes 
when  he  had  been  with  Mary,  he  had  forgotten  that  she 
was  a  girl  .  .  .  she  was  just  some  one  with  whom  he  was 
playing  a  game  or  going  for  a  walk  or  taking  a  bathe  in 
the  sea.  But  he  could  not  forget  that  Sheila  was  a  woman. 
When  he  had  danced  with  her  and  his  arm  was  about  her 
waist  and  her  fingers  were  in  his  .  .  .  he  seemed  to  grow 
up.  He  felt  as  if  something  at  which  he  had  been  gazing 
uncomprehendingly  for  a  long  time,  had  suddenly  become 
known  to  him.  He  recognised  something  .  .  .  understood 
something  which  had  puzzled  him. 

"Let's  dance  again,"  he  said,  standing  up  before  her. 

' '  All  right, ' '  she  answered,  rising  and  going  to  him. 

"I  love  dancing,"  he  said  to  her. 

"Yes,"  she  murmured  in  reply. 

8 

When  the  dance  was  over,  he  took  her  to  her  uncle's 
farm.  Marsh,  overcome  by  headache,  had  gone  home  be- 
fore the  dance  was  ended,  and  Henry  felt  glad  of  this.  He 
waited  in  the  porch  of  the  schoolhouse  while  Sheila  put  on 
her  coat  and  wrap,  and  wondered  why  his  feeling  for  her 
was  so  different  from  his  feeling  for  Mary  Graham,  and 
while  he  wondered,  she  came  to  him,  gathering  up  her 
skirts. 

"Isn't  the  sky  lovely?"  she  said,  glancing  up  at  the 
stars,  as  they  walked  out  of  the  school-yard  into  the  road. 

He  glanced  up  too,  but  did  not  answer. 

"Millions  an'  millions  of  them,"  she  said.  "You'd  won- 
der the  sky  'ud  hold  them  all!" 


90  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

"Many's  a  time  I  wonder  about  the  stars,"  she  went  on. 
"Do  you  ever  wonder  about  them?" 

"Sometimes." 

"Do  you  think  there's  people  in  them,  the  same  as  there 
is  on  the  earth?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  answered. 

"This  is  a  star,  too,  isn't  it?"  she  asked. 

"Yes." 

"An*  shines  just  like  them  does?" 

"Yes,  I  think  so!" 

"That's  quare!"  She  walked  on  for  a  few  yards  with- 
out speaking,  and  her  eyes  were  fixed  steadily  on  the  starry 
fields.  "It's  funny,"  she  said,  "to  think  mebbe  there's 
people  up  there  lookin'  at  us  an*  them  mebbe  thinkin' 
about  this  place  what  we're  thinkin'  of  them.  Wouldn't 
you  love  to  be  able  to  fly  up  to  one  of  them  an*  just  see  if 
it's  true?  .  .  .'* 

He  laughed  at  her  and  she  laughed  in  response.  "I'm 
talkin'  blether,"  she  said,  stumbling  over  a  stone  in  the 
road. 

"Mind!**  he  warned  her,  putting  out  his  hand  to  steady 
her. 

"I  was  nearly  down  that  time,'*  she  said.  "These  roads 
is  awful  in  the  dark  .  .  .  you  can't  see  where  you're  goin' 
or  what*s  in  the  way!" 

"No,"  he  replied. 

Her  arms  were  crooked  because  she  was  holding  her 
skirts  about  her  ankles,  and  as  she  stumbled  against  him  a 
second  time,  he  put  out  his  hand  and  caught  hold  of  her 
arm,  and  this  time  he  did  not  withdraw  it.  He  slipped  his 
arm  inside  hers  and  drew  her  close  to  him,  and  so  they 
walked  on  in  the  starlight  up  the  rough  road  that  led  to 
Llatthew  Hamilton's  farm. 

"It's  quaren  late,"  she  said,  moving  nearer  to  him. 

"Yes,"  he  answered. 

There  was  a  rustle  in  the  trees  as  the  night  wind  blew 


CHANGING  WINDS  91 

through  the  branches,  and  they  could  hear  the  silken  mur- 
mur of  the  corn  as  it  bent  before  the  breeze.  Now  and 
then  there  was  a  flutter  of  wings  in  a  hedge  as  they  passed 
by,  and  the  low  murmurs  of  cattle  and  sheep  came  from 
the  fields. 

*'I  wish  it  were  next  Thursday,"  he  said. 

"So  do  I,"  she  replied. 

*'I  wish  we  could  have  two  dancing-classes  in  the  week 
instead  of  one!" 

**So  do  I,"  she  said. 

"But  we  can't  manage  that,"  he  continued.  "You  see 
we  have  two  nights  for  the  Language  class!  ..." 

"You  could  have  one  night  for  the  Language  class," 
she  said,  * '  and  two  nights  for  dancing ! ' ' 

"I  don't  think  Marsh  would  like  that,"  he  answered. 

They  walked  on  for  a  while,  thinking  of  what  Marsh 
would  say,  and  then  she  broke  the  silence. 

"I  don't  see  the  good  of  them  oul'  language  classes,"  she 
said. 

"Don't  you?" 

"No.    I'd  rather  be  dancin'  any  day!  ..." 


He  left  her  at  the  gate  that  led  into  the  farm-yard. 

"Good-night,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  hand  to  her. 

"Good-night!"  she  replied. 

But  still  he  did  not  move  away  nor  did  she  open  the  gate 
and  pass  into  the  yard. 

"I  shall  look  forward  to  Thursday,"  he  said. 

"So  shall  I!" 

"Good-night!" 

"Good-night!" 

He  still  held  her  hand  in  his  and  as  she  made  a  move- 
ment to  draw  it  away,  he  suddenly  pulled  her  to  him  and 
put  his  arms  about  her  and  kissed  her. 

"Sheila!"  he  said. 


9«  •  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Let  me  go!"  she  whispered. 

She  drew  away  from  him,  and  stood  looking  at  him  for 
a  few  moments.  Then  she  pushed  the  gate  open  and 
walked  into  the  yard. 

"Good-night!"  she  said. 


THE  SEVENTH  CHAPTER 


His  habit  had  been  to  work  in  the  morning  with  Marsh, 
and  then,  after  light  luncheon,  they  walked  through  the 
country  during  the  afternoon,  climbing  hills  or  tramping 
heavily  through  the  fields  or,  going  off  on  bicycles,  to  bathe 
at  Cushendall.  Sometimes,  Mr.  Quinn  accompanied  them 
on  these  expeditions,  and  then  they  had  fierce  arguments 
about  Ireland,  but  more  often  Marsh  and  Henry  went  off 
together,  leaving  Mr.  Quinn  behind  to  ponder  over  some 
problem  of  agriculture  or  to  wrangle  with  William  Henry 
Matier  on  what  was  and  what  was  not  a  fair  day's  work. 
But  now,  Henry  began  to  scheme  to  be  alone.  On  the 
day  after  he  had  taken  Sheila  Morgan  to  her  uncle 's  farm, 
he  had  been  so  restless  and  inattentive  during  his  morn- 
ing's work  that  Marsh  had  asked  him  if  he  were  ill. 

"I'm  rather  headachy,"  he  had  answered,  and  had 
gladly  accepted  the  offer  to  quit  work  for  the  day. 

"Would  you  like  to  go  out  for  a  walk?"  Marsh  had 
asked.     "The  fresh  air!  .  .  ." 

And  Henry  had  replied,  * '  No,  thanks !  I  think  I  'II  just 
go  up  to  my  room ! ' ' 

He  had  gone  to  his  room  and  then,  listening  until  he  had 
heard  Marsh  go  out,  he  had  descended  the  stairs  and,  almost 
on  tiptoe,  had  gone  out  of  the  house  by  a  side-door,  and, 
slipping  through  the  paddock  as  if  he  were  anxious  not  to 
be  seen,  had  run  swiftly  through  the  meadows  and  corn- 
fields until  he  reached  the  road  that  led  to  Hamilton's 
farm.  He  had  not  decided  what  he  was  going  to  do  when 
he  had  reached  the  farm.  Sheila  would  probably  be  busy 
about  the  house  or  she  might  have  work  to  do  in  the  farra- 

93 


94  CHANGING  WINDS 

yard.  Now  that  her  uncle  was  ill,  some  of  his  labour  would 
have  to  be  done  by  others.  But  he  would  be  less  in  the 
way,  he  thought,  in  the  morning  than  he  would  be  in  the 
evening  when  the  cows  were  being  milked  .  .  .  though  he 
might  offer  to  help  her  to  strain  the  milk  and  churn  it,  if 
she  did  that,  and  he  could  scald  the  milk-pans  and  .  .  . 
do  lots  of  things!  The  evening,  however,  was  still  a 
long  way  off,  but  the  morning  was  .  .  .  now!  And  he 
wished  very  much  to  be  with  Sheila  .  .  .  now  .  .  .  this 
moment ! 

He  saw  her  before  she  saw  him.  She  had  her  back  to 
him,  and  she  was  bending  over  her  uncle  who  was  sitting 
at  the  door  of  the  farmhouse,  with  a  rug  wrapped  round 
his  legs.  Henry,  suddenly  shy,  stood  still  in  the  *  *  loanie, '  * 
looking  at  her  and  trying  to  think  of  something  to  say  to 
her  which  would  make  his  appearance  there  at  that  hour 
natural ;  but  before  he  had  thought  of  something  that  was 
suitable,  she  turned  and  saw  him,  and  so  he  went  forward, 
tongue-tied  and  awkward. 

"Here's  Mr.  Quinn!"  she  said  to  her  uncle  .  .  .  she 
had  never  known  him  as  Master  Henry,  and  she  had  not 
yet  learned  to  call  him  by  his  Christian  name  alone. 

The  farmer  looked  up.  "You  mane  Mr.  Henry,"  he 
said,  and  Henry,  listening  to  him,  felt  that  at  last  he  was 
near  manhood,  for  people  were  shedding  the  "Master." 

"Good-morning,  Hamilton!"  he  said,  holding  out  his 
hand  to  the  farmer.    * '  How  're  you  to-day  ? ' ' 

"Middlin',  sir  .  .  .  only  middlin'.  This  is  the  first  I've 
been  out  of  the  house  this  long  while,  but  the  day's  that 
warm,  I  just  thought  I  'd  like  to  get  a  heat  of  the  sun,  bad 
or  no  bad.  It's  a  terrible  thing  to  be  helpless  like  this 
.  .  .  not  able  to  do  a  han's-turn  for  yourself!  ..." 

"Ah,  quit,  Uncle  Matt!"  Sheila  interjected.  "Sure, 
you'll  soon  be  all  right  an'  runnin'  about  like  a  two-year 
oul'!"  She  turned  to  Henry.  "He's  an  awful  man  for 
wantin'  to  be  doin'  things,  an'  it's  sore  work  tryin'  to  get 
him  to  sit  still  the  way  the  doctor  says  he 's  to  sit.    Always 


CHANGING  WINDS  96 

wantin'  to  be  up  an'  doin'  somethin'!  Aren't  you,  Uncle 
Matt?" 

"Ay,  daughter,  I  am.  I  was  always  the  lad  for 
work!  .  .  ." 

"You're  a  terrible  oul'  provoker,  so  you  are.  You're 
just  jealous,  that's  it,  an'  you're  heart-feard  we'll  mebbe 
all  learn  how  to  look  after  the  farm  better  nor  you  can!" 

The  old  man  smiled  and  took  hold  of  her  hand  and 
fondled  it.  "You're  the  right  wee  girl,"  he  said  affection- 
ately. "Always  doin'  your  best  to  keep  a  man's  heart 
up!" 

"Indeed,  then,"  she  said  briskly,  "you  gimme  enough 
to  do  to  keep  your  heart  up.  You're  worse  nor  a  cradleful 
of  childher !  .  .  .  Here,  let  me  wrap  this  shawl  about  your 
shoulders!  Aren't  you  the  oul'  footer  to  be  lettin'  it  slip 
down  like  that?  .  .  .  There  now!" 

He  lay  back  in  his  chair  while  she  folded  the  shawl 
about  him,  and  smiled  at  her.  "God  content  you,  daugh- 
ter!" he  murmured. 


"Well?"  she  said  to  Henry  as  they  moved  towards  the 
byre. 

He  had  sat  with  the  farmer  for  a  while,  talking  of  the 
weather  and  the  crops  and  the  prospects  of  the  harvest, 
and  then,  seeing  Sheila  going  across  the  yard,  he  had 
followed  her. 

"Well?"  she  said,  looking  at  him  quizzically. 

He  did  not  know  what  to  say,  so  he  stood  there  smiling 
at  her.  Her  arms  were  bare  to  the  bend,  and  the  neck  of 
her  blouse  was  open  so  that  he  saw  her  firm,  brown  throat. 

"Well!"  he  replied,  still  smiling,  and  "Well?"  she  said 
again. 

She  went  into  the  byre,  and  he  followed  her  to  the  door, 
and  stood  peering  into  the  dark  interior  where  a  sick  cow 
lay  lowing  softly. 


96  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Is  that  all  you  have  to  say  for  yourself?"  Sheila  called 
to  him. 

"I  have  a  whole  lot  to  say,"  he  replied,  **but  I  don't 
know  how  to  say  it ! " 

She  laughed  at  that,  and  he  liked  the  strong,  quick  sound 
of  her  laughter.  "You're  the  quare  wee  fella,"  she 
exclaimed. 

Wee  fellow!    He  flushed  and  straightened  himself. 

"I  was  passing  along  the  road,"  he  said  stiffly,  "and  I 
thought  I  'd  come  up  and  see  your  uncle !  .  .  . " 

"Oh!"  she  answered. 

"Yes.  My  father  was  wondering  yesterday  how  he  was 
getting  on,  so  I  just  thought  I  'd  come  over  and  see  him.  I 
suppose  you're  busy?" 

*  *  You  suppose  right ! ' ' 

He  moved  a  step  or  two  away  from  the  door  of  the  byre. 
"Then  I  won't  hinder  you  in  your  work,"  he  said. 

"You're  not  hinderin'  me,"  she  replied,  coming  out  of 
the  dark  byre  as  she  spoke.  *  *  It  would  take  the  quare  man 
to  hinder  me!    Where's  Mr,  Marsh  this  mornin'?" 

' '  Oh,  somewhere ! ' ' 

"I  thought  you  an'  him  was  always  thegether.  You're 
always  about  anyway ! ' ' 

He  felt  strangely  boyish  while  she  was  talking.  Last 
night,  when  he  had  drawn  her  to  him  and  had  kissed  her 
soft,  moist  lips,  he  had  felt  suddenly  adult.  While  his 
arms  were  about  her,  he  was  conscious  of  manhood,  of 
something  new  in  his  life,  something  that  he  had  been  grow- 
ing to,  but  until  that  moment  had  not  yet  reached  .  .  . 
and  now,  standing  in  the  strong  sunlight  and  looking  into 
her  firm,  laughing  eyes,  his  manhood  seemed  to  have  re- 
ceded from  him,  and  once  more  he  was  ...  a  wee  fellow, 
a  schoolboy,  a  bit  of  a  lad.  .  .  .  His  vexation  must  have 
been  apparent  in  his  expression,  for  she  said  "What  ails 
you?"  to  him. 

''Nothing,"  he  replied,  turning  away. 

It  was  she  who  was  making  him  feel  schoolboyish  again. 


CHANGING  WINDS  97 

She  looked  so  capable  and  so  assured,  standing  outside  the 
byre-door,  with  a  small  crock  in  her  hands,  that  he  felt 
that  she  was  many  years  older  than  he  was,  that  she  knew 
far  more  than  he  could  hope  to  know  for  a  long  time.  .  .  . 

She  put  the  crock  down  and  came  close  to  him  and  took 
hold  of  his  arm.  "What  ails  you?"  she  said  again,  peer- 
ing up  into  his  face  and  smiling  at  him. 

He  looked  at  her  with  sulky  eyes.  "You're  making  fun 
of  me,"  he  said. 

She  shook  his  arm  and  pushed  him.  "G'long  with 
you!"  she  said.  "A  big  lump  of  a  fella*  like  you,  actin' 
the  chile!  ..."  She  picked  up  the  crock  and  handed  it 
to  him.  "Here,"  she  said,  "carry  that  into  the  house, 
will  you,  an'  ask  me  aunt  Kate  to  give  you  the  full  of  it 
with  yella  male,  an'  then  hurry  back.  I'll  be  up  in  the 
hayloft,"  she  added,  moving  off. 


He  laid  the  crock  of  yellow  meal  down  on  a  wooden  box 
in  the  barn,  and  then  climbed  up  the  ladder  to  the  hayloft. 

"Wheesht,"  she  said,  holding  up  her  hand.  "There's 
a  hen  sittin'  here,  an'  I  don't  want  her  disturbed!"  He 
climbed  into  the  loft  as  quietly  as  he  could.  "They'll  soon 
be  out  now,"  she  went  on,  "the  lovely  wee  things!  .  .  . 
What  did  you  come  here  for,  the  day?" 

' '  To  see  you ! "  he  answered. 

"Then  that  was  a  lie  about  comin'  to  see  my  Uncle 
Matt?" 

He  nodded  his  head. 

* '  I  thought  as  much.     Sit  down  here  by  the  side  of  me ! " 

He  sat  down  on  the  hay  where  she  bade  him.  "Are  you 
angry  with  me?"  he  asked,  making  a  wisp  of  hay. 

"What  would  I  be  angry  for?" 

He  did  not  know.  Last  night,  perhaps,  when  he  had 
kissed  her? 

' '  Oh,  that ! "  she  said.    * '  Sure,  that 's  nothin ' ! " 


98  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Nothing?" 

Why,  then,  had  she  left  him  so  suddenly?  She  must 
have  known  how  much  he  had  to  say  to  her.  .  .  . 

"Look  at  the  time  it  was!"  she  exclaimed.  "An'  me 
havin'  to  get  up  at  five  an'  let  the  cows  out.  .  .  .  You 
weren't  up  at  no  five,  I'll  bet!"  He  had  risen  at  eight. 
"Eight!"  she  exclaimed.  "That's  no  hour  of  the  day  to 
be  risin'.  If  you  were  married  to  me,  I'd  make  you  skip 
long  before  that  hour!" 

Married  to  her!  .  .  . 

"Sheila,"  he  whispered,  taking  hold  of  her  arm. 

"Well?"  she  said,  thrusting  a  hay-stalk  into  his  hair. 

* '  I  love  you.  Sheila ! "  he  whispered,  coming  closer  to  her. 

"Do  you,  indeed?"  she  answered. 

"I  do.  Sheila,  I  do.  .  .  ." 

He  raised  himself  so  that  he  was  kneeling  in  front  of 
her.  His  shyness  had  left  him  now,  and  the  words  were 
pouring  rapidly  out  of  his  mouth. 

"The  minute  I  saw  you  in  the  door  of  the  schoolroom 
that  night,  I  was  in  love  with  you,     I  was,  indeed ! ' ' 

"Were  you?" 

"Yes.  I  couldn't  help  it.  Sheila,  and  the  worst  of  it  was 
I  didn't  know  what  to  say  to  you.  And  then,  last  night 
.  .  .  when  we  were  walking  up  the  'loanie'  together 
and  I  was  holding  your  arm  .  .  .  you  know!  .  .  .  like 
this.  ..."  He  took  hold  of  her  arm  as  he  spoke  and 
pressed  it  in  his.  ...  "I  felt  like  .  .  .  like.  ..." 

"Like  what?" 

"I  don't  know.  Like  anything.  You  will  marry  me. 
Sheila?    You  do  love  me?  .  .  ." 

She  withdrew  her  arm  from  his  and  struck  him  lightly 
with  a  wisp  of  hay.  "You're  in  a  terrible  hurry  all  of  a 
sudden!"  she  said.  "One  minute  you  hardly  know  me, 
an'  the  next  minute  you're  gettin'  ready  to  be  married  to 
me.    You're  a  despert  wee  fella!" 

Wee  fellow  again ! 


CHANGING  WINDS  99 

"I'm  not  so  very  young,"  he  said. 

"What  age  are  you?"  she  asked. 

"I'm  nearly  seventeen,"  he  replied. 

She  jumped  up  and  stood  over  him.  ' '  God  save  us, ' '  she 
said,  "that's  the  powerful  age.  You'd  nearly  bate 
Methusaleh!" 

He  stood  up  beside  her.  "Now,  you're  laughing  at  me 
again,"  he  complained. 

"No,  I'm  not,"  she  answered. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his  shoulder  and  gripped  it  firmly, 
and  stood  thus,  looking  at  him  intently.  Then  she  drew 
him  into  her  arms  and  kissed  him.  "I  like  you  quaren 
well,"  she  said,  holding  him  to  her. 

"Do  you,  Sheila?" 

"Aye,  of  course  I  do,  or  I  wouldn't  be  huggin'  you  like 
this,  would  I  ?    Did  you  bring  the  yella  male  ? ' ' 

He  nodded  his  head.    "It's  down  below,"  he  said. 

"Dear,  oh,  dear,"  she  sighed.  "I've  wasted  a  terrible 
lot  of  time  on  you,  Mr.  Quinn !  .  .  . " 

' '  Call  me  '  Henry, '  "  he  said. 

"I'll  call  you  'Harry,'  "  she  answered. 

"You  can  call  me  anything  you  like!  ..." 

She  pinched  his  cheek.  "You're  a  dear  wee  fella,"  she 
said.  He  did  not  mind  being  called  a  "wee  fella"  now. 
"But  you're  keepin'  me  from  my  work,"  she  went  on. 

He  seized  her  hand  impetuously.  "Take  a  day  off,"  he 
said,  ' '  and  we  '11  go  for  a  long  walk  together ! ' ' 

She  laughed  at  him.  "You  quality  people  is  the  great 
ones  for  talk,"  she  replied.  "An'  how  could  I  take  a  day 
off  an'  me  with  my  work  to  do?" 

"Well,  this  evening  then,"  he  urged. 

"There'll  be  the  cows  to  milk!  ..." 

"I'll  come  and  help  you." 

"But  sure  you  can't  milk!" 

"No,  I  can't  milk,  of  course,  but  I  can  do  anything  else 
you  want  done.     I  can  hold  things  and  .  .  .  and  run  mes- 


100  CHANGING  WINDS 

sages  .  .  .  and  just  help  you.  Can't  I?  And  then,  when 
you've  finished  your  work,  we'll  go  and  sit  in  the  clover 
field.  .  .  ." 

"An'  get  our  death  of  cold  sittin'  on  the  damp  ground. 
Dear  0,  but  men  talks  quare  blether ! ' ' 

He  tried  to  persuade  her  that  dew  was  not  damping. 
.  .  .  "Ah,  quit!"  she  exclaimed  .  .  .  and  then  he  begged 
for  her  company  in  a  walk  along  the  Ballymena  Road. 

"I  suppose  I'll  have  to  give  in  to  you,"  she  said. 
"You're  a  terrible  fella  for  coaxin'!" 

She  moved  towards  the  trap  where  the  head  of  the  ladder 
showed,  and  prepared  to  descend  from  the  loft. 

"What  time  will  I  come  for  you?"  he  asked,  following 
her. 

"Half-seven,"  she  answered,  going  down  the  ladder. 
"I'll  be  well  done  my  work  then!" 

He  stood  above  her,  looking  down  through  the  trap. 
"We  generally  have  dinner  at  half -past  seven,"  he  said. 

"You  should  have  your  dinner  in  the  middle  of  the  day, 
like  us,"  she  answered,  and  added,  decisively,  "It's  half- 
seven  or  never ! ' ' 

"All  right,"  he  exclaimed,  stooping  down  carefully  and 
putting  his  feet  on  a  rung  of  the  ladder.  "I'll  come  for 
you  then.    I'll  manage  it  somehow." 


He  told  his  father  that  he  did  not  want  any  dinner. 
John  Marsh  had  enquired  about  his  headache,  and  Henry 
had  said  that  it  was  better,  but  that  he  thought  he  would 
like  to  be  quiet  that  evening.  He  said,  too,  that  he  had 
made  up  his  mind  to  go  for  a  long,  lonely  walk.  "But 
what  about  your  dinner?"  Mr.  Quinn  had  said,  and  he  had 
answered  that  he  did  not  want  any.  "If  I 'm  hungry, ' '  he 
added,  "I  can  have  something  before  I  go  to  bed." 

He  felt  vaguejy  irritated  with  John  Marsh  who  first  pes- 
tered him  .  .  .  that  was  the  word  Henry  used  in  his  mind 


CHANGING  WINDS  101 

.  .  .  with  sympathy  and  then  lamented  that  his  headache 
would  prevent  him  from  helping  that  evening  at  the  Gaelic 
language  class.  ' '  Still,  I  suppose  we  '11  manage, ' '  he  ended 
regretfully. 

"I  don't  suppose  there'll  be  many  at  the  class,"  Henry 
replied  almost  sneeringly. 

"Why?"  said  Marsh. 

"Oh,  well,"  Henry  went  on,  "after  last  night!  ..." 

"You  mean  that  they  think  more  of  dancing  than  they 
do  of  the  language  ? ' '  INIarsh  interrupted,  and  there  was  so 
much  of  anxiety  in  the  tone  of  his  voice  that  Henry  re- 
gretted that  he  had  sneered  at  him. 

"Well,  that's  natural,"  he  said,  trying  to  think  of  some 
phrase  that  would  mitigate  the  unkindness  of  what  he  was 
saying,  and  failing  to  think  of  it.  "After  all,  it  is  much 
more  fun  to  dance  than  to  learn  grammar.  ..." 

"But  this  is  the  Irish  language,"  IMarsh  persisted,  as  if 
the  Irishness  of  the  tongue  transcended  the  drudgery  of 
learning  grammar. 

Mr.  Quinn  crumpled  the  Northern  Whig  and  threw  it  at 
Marsh's  head.  "You  an'  your  oul'  language!"  he  ex- 
claimed. "What  good '11  it  do  anybody  but  a  lot  of  pro- 
fessors. Here's  the  world  tryin'  to  get  Latin  an'  Greek 
out  of  the  universities,  an'  here's  you  tryin'  to  get  an- 
other dead  language  into  them !" 

There  followed  an  argument  that  developed  into  a  wran- 
gle, in  the  midst  of  which  Henry,  flinging  a  consolatory 
speech  to  Marsh,  escaped  from  the  house.  "You'll  get  all 
the  keen  ones  to-night,"  he  said.  "That'll  be  some  con- 
solation to  you ! ' ' 

It  was  too  soon  to  go  up  to  Hamilton's  farm.  The  dairy 
work  would  hardly  be  done,  and  there  would  be  the  even- 
ing meal  to  prepare,  and  he  knew  that  he  would  not  be  wel- 
come in  the  middle  of  that  activity.  He  did  not  wish  to 
return  to  the  room  where  his  father  and  John  Marsh  were 
arguing  about  the  Irish  language,  nor  did  he  wish  to  go 
and  sit  in  his  own  room  until  the  time  came  to  go  and 


102  CHANGING  WINDS 

meet  Sheila.  If  Hannah  were  to  make  some  sandwiches 
for  him,  in  case  he  should  feel  hungry,  he  would  go  to  the 
bottom  fields  and  lie  in  the  long  grass  by  the  brook  until 
it  was  time  to  meet  Sheila.  He  went  downstairs  to  the 
kitchen  and  found  Hannah  busy  with  the  night's  dinner. 

**Well,  Master  Henry?"  she  said. 

He  told  her  of  his  headache  and  his  desire  for  a  solitary 
walk,  and  asked  her  to  cut  sandwiches  for  him. 

"I  will  with  a  heart  an'  a  half,"  she  said,  "when  I've 
strained  these  potatoes.  Sit  down  there  a  while  an'  con- 
tent yourself  till  I've  done.  ..." 

He  took  the  sandwiches  from  her  and  went  off  to  the 
bottom  fields.  The  sky  was  full  of  mingled  colours  and 
long  torn  clouds  that  looked  like  flights  of  angels,  and 
hidden  in  the  fold  of  one  great  white  strip  of  cloud  that 
stretched  up  into  the  heavens,  the  sickle  moon  shone  faintly, 
waiting  for  the  setting  sun  to  disappear  so  that  she  should 
shine  out  with  unchallenged  refulgence.  He  stood  a  while 
to  look  at  the  glory  of  the  sky,  and  munched  his  sand- 
wiches while  he  looked.  He  had  always  had  a  sensuous 
love  of  fine  shapes  and  looks;  the  big  bare  branches  of  an 
old  tree  showing  darkly  against  a  winter  sky  or  the  chang- 
ing colour  of  clouds  at  sunset,  transfused  at  one  moment 
to  the  look  of  filmy  gold  as  the  sun  sent  his  rays  shining 
upwards,  darkened  at  the  next,  when  the  sun  had  vanished, 
so  that  they  had  the  colour  of  smoke  and  made  a  stain  as 
if  God  had  drawn  a  sooty  thumb  across  the  sky;  but  now 
his  sensuousness  had  developed,  and  he  found  himself  full 
of  admiration  for  things  which  hitherto  he  had  not  ob- 
served. That  evening,  when  the  cart-horses  were  led  home, 
he  had  suddenly  perceived  that  their  great  limbs  were 
beautiful.  He  had  stood  still  in  the  lane  to  watch  them 
going  by,  and  had  liked  the  heavy  plunging  sound  of  their 
hoofs  on  the  rough  road,  and  the  faded  look  of  the  long 
hair  that  hung  about  their  houghs;  but  more  than  these 
he  had  liked  the  great  round  limbs  of  them,  so  full  of 
strength.    He  remembered  that  once  at  Boveyhayne,  Mary 


CHANGING  WINDS  103 

Graham  and  he  had  argued  about  the  sea-gulls.  She  had 
**just  loved"  them,  but  he  had  qualified  his  admiration. 
He  liked  the  long,  motionless  flight  of  the  gulls  as  they 
circled  through  the  air,  and  the  whiteness  of  their  shapely 
bodies  and  the  grey  feathers  on  their  backs,  but  he  dis- 
liked the  small  heads  they  had  and  the  long  yellow  beaks 
and  the  little  black  eyes  and  the  harsh  cry  .  .  .  and  he  had 
almost  sickened  when  he  saw  them  feeding  on  the  entrails 
that  were  thrown  to  them  by  the  fishermen.  .  .  .  But  now, 
since  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  Sheila  Morgan,  it  seemed 
to  him  that  everything  in  the  world  was  beautiful;  and 
lying  here  in  the  long  grass,  he  yielded  himself  to  the  love- 
liness of  the  earth.  He  lay  back  and  closed  his  eyes  and 
listened  to  the  sounds  that  filled  the  air,  the  noise  of 
pleased,  tired  things  at  peace  and  the  subdued  songs  of 
roosting  birds.  He  could  hear  shouts  from  the  labourers 
in  the  distant  hayfields  and,  now  and  then,  the  slow  rattle 
of  a  country  cart  as  it  moved  clumsily  along  the  uneven 
roads  that  led  from  the  fields  to  the  farmyards.  There  was 
a  drowsy  buzz  of  insects  that  mingled  oddly  with  the  bur- 
ble of  the  stream  and  the  lowing  of  the  cattle.  .  .  .  He  lay 
there  and  listened  to  a  lark  as  it  flew  up  from  the  ground 
with  a  queer,  agitated  flutter  of  wings,  watching  it  as 
it  ascended  high  and  higher  until  it  became  a  tiny  speck, 
and  then  he  sat  up  and  watched  it  as  it  descended  again, 
still  flying  with  that  queer,  agitated  flutter  of  wings,  until 
it  came  near  the  earth,  when  its  song  suddenly  ceased  and 
it  changed  its  flight  and  fell  swiftly  to  its  nest. 

He  rose  up  from  the  grass  and  walked  over  to  the  stream 
and  dipped  his  hands  into  it,  splashing  the  water  on  to  the 
grass  beside  him.  The  sunlight  shone  on  his  hand  and 
made  the  wet  hairs  shine  like  golden  threads.  .  .  . 


He  was  kneeling  there  at  the  side  of  the  stream,  looking 
at  the  wet  glow  of  his  hand  when  the  fear  of  death  came 


104  CHANGING  WINDS 

to  him,  and  instantly  he  was  terrified  when  he  thought  that 
he  might  die.  The  consciousness  of  life  was  in  him  and 
the  desire  to  continue  and  to  experience  and  to  know  were 
quickening  and  increasing.  It  seemed  to  him  then  that  if 
he  were  to  die  at  that  moment,  he  would  have  been  cheated 
of  his  inheritance,  that  he  would  have  a  grievance  against 
God  for  all  eternity.  .  .  .  He  moved  away  from  the  brook 
and  sank  back  into  the  grass,  shaken  and  disconcerted. 
Until  that  moment,  he  had  never  thought  of  death  except 
as  a  vague,  inevitable  thing  that  came  to  all  creatures 
some  time  .  .  .  generally  when  they  were  old  and  had  lost 
the  savour  of  life.  He  had  never  seen  a  dead  man  or 
woman  and  he  was  unfamiliar  with  the  rites  of  burial.  He 
knew,  indeed,  that  people  die  before  they  grow  old,  that 
children  die,  but  until  that  moment,  death  had  not  become 
a  personal  thing,  a  thing  that  might  descend  on  him.  .  .  . 
He  shut  his  eyes  and  tried  to  close  the  thought  of  death 
out  of  his  mind,  but  it  would  not  go  away.  He  began  to 
sing  disconnected  staves  of  songs  in  the  hope  that  he  would 
forget  that  he  was  mortal.  .  .  .  There  was  a  song  that 
Bridget  Fallon  had  taught  him  when  he  was  a  child,  and 
now  after  many  years,  he  was  singing  it  again : 

There  wiere  three  lords  came  out  of  Spain, 
They  came  to  court  my  daughter  Jane. 
My  daughter  Jane,  she  is  too  young, 
And  cannot  bear  your  flatt'ring  tongue. 
So  fare  you  well,  make  no  delay, 
But  come  again  another  day.  .  .  . 

But  the  thought  of  death  still  lay  heavy  on  his  mind, 
and  so  he  got  up  and  left  the  field  and  hurried  along  the 
road  that  led  to  Hamilton's  farm. 

"Oh,  my  God,"  he  cried  to  himself,  "if  I  were  to  die 
now,  just  when  I'm  beginning  to  know  things!  ..." 

He  began  to  run,  as  if  he  would  run  away  from  his  own 
thoughts.    The  torn  strips  of  clouds,  that  had  looked  like 


CHANGING  WINDS  105 

molten  gold,  were  now  darkening,  and  their  darkness 
seemed  ominous  to  him.  The  steepness  of  the  "loanie" 
made  him  pant  and  presently  he  slackened  his  pace  and 
slowed  doAvn  to  walking.  His  eyes  felt  hot  and  stiff  in  their 
sockets  and  when  he  put  his  hand  on  his  forehead,  he  felt 
that  it  was  wet  with  sweat. 

"I'm  frightened,"  he  said  to  himself.     "Scared!  .  .  ." 

He  wiped  his  forehead  and  then  crumpled  his  hand- 
kerchief in  his  hot  palms. 

"I'm  rattled,"  he  went  on  to  himself.  "That's  what  I 
am.     Oh,  my  God,  I  am  scared!  ..." 

He  looked  about  him  helplessly.  He  could  see  a  man 
tossing  hay  in  a  field  near  by,  and  he  watched  the  rhythmi- 
cal movement  of  his  fork  as  it  rose  and  fell. 

"I  couldn't  die  now,"  he  thought.  "I  couldn't.  It 
wouldn't  be  fair.  I  wouldn't  let  myself  die  ...  I 
wouldn't!" 

And  as  suddenly  as  the  fear  of  death  had  fallen  on  him, 
it  left  him. 

"Good  Lord!"  he  said  aloud,  "what  an  ass  I  am!" 


Sheila  was  sitting  on  a  stool  in  front  of  the  door.  Her 
uncle  had  gone  to  bed,  and  her  aunt,  tired  after  her  day's 
work  and  her  attendance  on  the  sick  man,  was  lying  on  the 
sofa,  dosing. 

"I  wondered  were  you  comin',"  Sheila  said  as  he  came 
up  to  her. 

"You  knew  I'd  come,"  he  answered. 

"I  didn't  know  anything  of  the  sort,"  she  exclaimed, 
getting  up  from  the  stool.  "Fellas  has  disappointed  me 
before  this." 

'  *  Have  you  had  other  sweethearts  ? "  he  asked,  frowning. 

She  laughed  at  him.  "I've  had  boys  since  I  was  that 
high,"  she  replied,  holding  out  her  hand  to  indicate  her 


106  CHANGING  WINDS 

height  when  she  first  had  a  sweetheart.  "What  are  you 
lookin'  so  sore  about?  D'ye  think  no  one  never  looked  at 
me  'til  you  came  along?    For  dear  sake !" 

She  rallied  him.  Was  she  the  first  girl  he  had  ever 
loved?  Was  she?  Ah,  he  was  afraid  to  answer.  As  if 
she  did  not  know!  Of  course,  she  was  not  the  first,  and 
dear  knows  she  might  not  be  the  last  .  .  . 

"I'll  never  love  any  one  but  you,  Sheila!  ..." 

"Wheesht  will  you,  or  my  aunt '11  hear  you!" 

"I  don't  care  who  hears  me!  .  .  ." 

"Well,  I  do  then.  Come  on  down  the  loanie  a  piece, 
an'  you  can  say  what  you  like.  I  love  the  way  you  talk 
.  .  .  you've  got  the  quare  nice  English  accent!" 

He  followed  her  across  the  farmyard  and  through  the 
gate  into  the  "loanie." 

"My  father  wouldn't  like  to  hear  you  saying  that,"  he 
said. 

"Why?"  she  asked.  "Does  he  not  like  the  English  way 
of  talkin'?" 

"Indeed,  he  does  not.  He  loves  the  way  you  talk,  the 
way  all  the  Ulster  people  talk !  .  .  . " 

"What!    Broad  an'  coarse  like  me?"  she  interrupted. 

Henry  nodded  his  head.  * '  He  doesn  't  think  it 's  coarse, ' ' 
he  said.    ' '  He  thinks  it 's  fine ! " 

Sheila  pondered  on  this  for  a  few  moments.  "He  must 
be  a  quare  man,  your  da ! "  she  said. 

They  walked  to  the  foot  of  the  *  *  loanie ' '  and  then  turned 
along  the  Ballymena  road. 

* '  Does  he  know  you  come  out  with  me  ? "  she  said. 

"Who?"  he  answered. 

"Your  da." 

"No.  You  see!  .  .  ."  He  did  not  know  what  to  say. 
It  had  not  occurred  to  him  to  talk  about  Sheila  to  his 
father,  and  he  realised  now  that  if  it  had,  he  probably 
would  not  have  done  so. 

"But  if  you're  goin'  to  marry  me?  .  .  ."  Sheila  was 
saying. 


CHANGING  WINDS  107 

"Oh,  of  course,"  he  replied.  "Of  course,  I  shall  have 
to  tell  him  about  you,  won't  I?  I  just  didn't  think  of  it. 
.  .  .  Then  you're  going  to  marry  me,  Sheila?"  he  de- 
manded, turning  to  her  quickly. 

"Och,  I  don't  know,"  she  answered.  "I'm  too  young 
to  be  married  yet,  an'  you're  younger  nor  me,  an'  mebbe 
we'd  change  our  minds,  an'  anyway  there's  a  quare  differs 
atween  us." 

"What  difference  is  there  between  us?"  he  said,  indig- 
nantly. 

"Aw,  there's  a  quare  deal  of  differs,"  she  maintained. 
"A  quare  deal.     You're  a  quality-man!  ..." 

"As  if  that  matters,"  he  interrupted. 

"It  matters  a  quare  lot,"  she  said. 

They  sat  down  on  a  bank  by  the  roadside  and  he  took 
hold  of  her  hand  and  pressed  it,  and  then  he  put  his  arm 
about  her  and  drew  her  head  down  on  to  his  shoulder. 

"Somebody '11  see  you,"  she  whispered. 

"There's  no  one  in  sight,"  he  replied. 

"Do  you  love  me  an  awful  lot?"  she  asked,  looking  up 
at  him. 

"You  know  I  do.'* 

"More  nor  anybody  in  the  world?" 

He  bent  over  and  kissed  her.  "More  than  anybody  in 
the  world,"  he  answered, 

"You're  not  just  lettin'  on?"  she  continued. 

"Letting  on!" 

"Aye.  ]\Iakin'  out  you  love  me,  an'  you  on'y  passin'  the 
time,  divertin'  yourself?" 

He  was  angry  with  her.  How  could  she  imagine  that  he 
would  pretend  to  love  her?  .  .  . 

"I  do  love  you,"  he  insisted,  "and  I'll  always  love  you. 
I  feel  that  .  .  .  that!  .  .  ." 

He  fumbled  for  words  to  express  his  love  for  her,  but 
could  not  find  any. 

"Ah,  well,"  she  said,  "it  doesn't  matter  whether  you're 
pretendin'  or  not.     I'm  quaren  happy  anyway!" 


108  CHANGING  WINDS 

She  struggled  out  of  his  embrace  and  put  her  arms  round 
his  neck  and  kissed  him.  She  remained  thus  with  her  arms 
round  him  and  her  face  close  to  his,  gazing  into  his  eyes 
as  if  she  were  searching  for  something.  .  .  . 

"What  are  you  thinkin',  Sheila?"  he  asked. 

**NothinV*  she  said,  and  she  drew  him  to  her  and  kissed 
him  again. 

"I  wish  I  was  older,"  he  exclaimed  presently. 

"Why?" 

"Because  I  could  marry  you,  then,  and  we'd  go  away 
and  see  all  the  places  in  the  world,  ..." 

"I'd  rather  go  to  Portrush  for  my  honeymoon,"  she 
said.    *  *  I  went  there  for  a  trip  once ! ' ' 

"We'd  go  to  Portrush  too.  We'd  go  to  all  the  places. 
I'd  take  you  to  England  and  Scotland  and  Wales,  and  then 
we'd  go  to  France  and  Spain  and  Italy  and  Africa  and 
India  and  all  the  places." 

"I'd  be  quaren  tired  goin'  to  all  them  places,"  she 
murmured, 

"And  then  when  we'd  seen  everything,  we'd  come  back 
to  Ireland  and  start  a  farm.  .  ,  ." 

She  sat  up  and  smiled  at  him.  "An'  keep  cows  an* 
horses,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  and  pigs  and  sheep  and  hens  and  ...  all  the 
things  they  have.    Ducks  and  things ! ' ' 

"I'd  love  that,"  she  said,  delighted, 

"We'd  go  up  to  Belfast  every  now  and  then,  and  look  at 
the  shops  and  buy  things!  ..." 

"An'  go  to  the  theatre  an'  have  our  tea  at  an  eatin'- 
house?" 

"We'd  go  to  an  hotel  for  our  tea,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  no,  I'd  be  near  afeard  of  them  places.  I  wasn't 
reared  up  to  that  sort  of  place,  an'  I  wouldn't  know  what 
to  do,  an'  all  the  people  lookin'  at  me,  an'  the  waiters 
watchin'  every  bite  you  put  in  your  mouth,  'til  you'd  near 
think  they'd  grudged  you  your  food!" 

They  made  plans  over  which  they  laughed,  and  they 


CHANGING  WINDS  109 

mocked  each  other,  teasing  and  pretending  to  anger,  and 
he  pulled  her  hair  and  kissed  her,  and  she  slapped  his 
cheeks  and  kissed  him. 

"I'd  give  the  world,"  she  said,  *'to  have  my  photo- 
graph took  in  a  low-neck  dress.  Abernethy  does  them 
grand !  .  .  , "  She  stopped  suddenly  and  turned  her  head 
slightly  from  him  in  a  listening  attitude. 

"What's  up?"  he  asked. 

"Wheesht!"  she  replied,  and  then  added,  "D'ye  hear 
anything  ? ' ' 

He  listened  for  a  moment  or  two,  and  then  said,  "Yes, 
it  sounds  like  a  horse  gallopin'.  ..."  They  listened 
again,  and  then  she  proceeded.  "You'd  near  think  it  was 
runnin'  away,"  she  said. 

The  sound  of  hooves  rapidly  beating  the  ground  and  the 
noise  of  quickly-revolving  wheels  came  nearer. 

"It  is  runnin'  away,"  she  said,  getting  up  from  the  bank 
and  moving  into  the  middle  of  the  road  where  she  stood 
looking  in  the  direction  from  which  the  sound  came. 

"  Don 't  stand  in  the  road, ' '  Henry  shouted  to  her.  * '  You 
might  get  hurt." 

She  did  not  move  nor  did  she  appear  to  hear  what  he 
was  saying.  He  had  a  strange  sensation  of  shrinking,  a 
desire  not  to  be  there,  but  he  subdued  it  and  went  to  join 
her  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 

"Here  it  is,"  she  said,  turning  to  him  and  pointing  to 
where  the  road  made  a  sudden  swerve. 

He  looked  and  saw  a  galloping  horse,  head  down,  com- 
ing rapidly  towards  them.  There  was  a  light  cart  behind 
it,  bumping  and  swaying  so  that  it  seemed  likely  to  be  over- 
turned, but  there  was  no  driver.  It  was  still  some  way 
oif,  and  he  had  time  to  think  that  he  ought  to  stop  the 
frightened  animal.  If  it  were  allowed  to  go  on,  it  might 
kill  some  one  in  the  village.  There  would  be  children 
playing  about  in  the  street.  .  .  . 

"I'll  stop  it,"  he  said  to  himself,  and  half -consciously 
he  buttoned  his  coat. 


110  CHANGING  WINDS 

He  tried  to  remember  just  what  he  ought  to  do.  "Will- 
iam Henry  Matier  had  told  him  not  to  stand  right  in  front 
of  a  runaway  horse,  but  to  move  to  the  side  so  that  he 
could  run  with  it.  He  would  do  that,  and  then  he  would 
spring  at  its  head  and  haul  the  reins  so  tightly  that  the 
bit  would  slip  back  into  the  horse's  mouth.  ...  He  moved 
from  the  middle  of  the  road,  and  was  conscious  that  Sheila 
had  moved,  too.  His  breath  was  coming  quickly,  and  he 
felt  again  that  sense  of  shrinking,  that  curious  desire  to 
run  away.  He  saw  a  wheel  of  the  cart  lurch  up  as  it  passed 
over  a  stone  in  the  road,  and  instantly  panic  seized  him. 
"My  God,"  he  thought,  "if  that  had  been  me!  ...  He 
saw  himself  flung  to  the  ground  by  the  maddened  horse 
and  the  wheel  passing  over  his  body,  crunching  his  flesh 
and  bones.  He  had  the  sensation  of  blood  gushing  from 
his  mouth,  and  for  a  moment  or  two  he  felt  as  if  he  had 
actually  suffered  the  physical  shock  of  being  broken  be- 
neath the  cart  wheel.  .  .  . 

"I  can't!"  he  muttered,  and  then  he  turned  and  ran 
swiftly  to  the  side  of  the  road  and  climbed  on  to  the  bank, 
struggling  to  break  through  the  thorn  hedge  at  the  top  of 
it.  His  hands  were  torn  and  bleeding  and  once  he  slipped 
and  fell  forward  and  his  face  was  scratched  by  the 
thorns.  .  .  . 


7 

He  had  thrown  himself  over  the  hedge  and  had  Iain 
there,  with  his  eyes  closed,  trembling.  He  was  crying  now, 
not  with  fright,  but  with  remorse.  He  had  failed  in  cour- 
age, and  perhaps  the  horse  had  dashed  into  the  village  and 
killed  a  child.  ...  He  wondered  what  Sheila  would  say, 
and  then  he  started  up,  his  eyes  wide  with  horror,  think- 
ing that  perhaps  Sheila  had  been  killed.  He  climbed  up 
the  bank,  and  jumped  over  the  low  hedge  into  the  road- 
way.   There  were   some   men   approaching   him,    coming 


CHANGING  WINDS  111 

from  the  direction  in  which  the  horse  had  come,  but  he  did 
not  pay  any  heed  to  them.  He  began  to  run  towards  the 
village.  A  little  distance  from  the  place  where  he  and 
Sheila  had  stood  to  watch  the  oncoming  animal,  the  road 
made  another  bend,  and  when  he  had  reached  this  bend,  he 
met  Sheila. 

"You  needn't  hurry  now,"  she  said. 

He  did  not  hear  the  emphasis  she  laid  on  the  word 
"now."    "Are  you  all  right?"  he  asked  anxiously. 

She  did  not  answer,  but  strode  on  past  him. 

"Are  you  all  right?"  he  repeated,  following  after  her. 

"It's  a  bit  late  to  ask  that,"  she  said,  turning  and  fac- 
ing him.  "I  might  'a'  been  killed  for  all  you  cared,  so 
long  as  you  were  safe  yourself!" 

He  shrank  back  from  her,  unable  to  answer,  and  the  men 
came  up,  before  she  could  say  anything  else  to  him. 

"Did  ye  see  the  horse  runnin'  away?"  one  of  them  said 
to  her. 

"You'll  find  it  down  the  road  a  piece,"  she  replied. 
"It's  leg's  broke.  It  tum'led  an'  fell,  Yous'll  have  to 
shoot  it,  I  s'pose!" 

They  supposed  they  would.  The  driver  had  been  drink- 
ing and  in  his  drunkenness  he  had  thrashed  the  poor  beast. 
..."  But  he  '11  never  thrash  another  horse,  the  same  lad, ' ' 
said  the  man  who  told  them  of  the  circumstances.  "He 
was  pitched  out  on  his  head,  an'  he  wasn't  worth  picking 
up  when  they  lifted  him.  Killed  dead,  an'  him  as  drunk 
as  a  fiddler!  Begod,  I  wouldn't  like  to  die  that  way!  It 
'ud  be  a  quare  thing  to  go  afore  your  Maker  an'  you 
stinkin'  wi'  drink!" 

The  men  went  on,  leaving  Sheila  and  Henry  together. 
She  stood  watching  the  men,  oblivious  seemingly  of  Henry 's 
presence,  until  he  put  out  his  hand  and  touched  hers. 

"Sheila!"  he  said. 

She  snatched  her  hand  away  from  him.  "Lave  me 
alone ! ' '  she  exclaimed,  and  moved  to  the  side  of  the  road 
further  from  him. 


112  CHANGING  WINDS 

"I  meant  to  try  and  stop  it,"  he  said,  "but  somehow  1 
couldn't.     I  ...  I  did  my  best!" 

He  had  followed  her  and  was  standing  before  her,  plead 
ing  with  her,  but  she  would  not  look  at  him.  He  stood 
for  a  while,  thinking  of  something  to  say,  and  then  put  out 
his  hand  again  and  touched  hers.     "Sheila,"  he  said. 

She  swung  round  swiftly  and  struck  him  in  the  face 
with  her  clenched  fist. 

' '  How  dare  you  touch  me ! "  she  cried  and  her  eyes  were 
full  of  fury. 

"Sheila!" 

"Don't  lay  a  finger  on  me  .  .  .  you  .  .  .  you  coward 
you!  You  were  afeard  to  stop  it,  an'  you  run  away,  cry  in' 
like  a  wee  ba!"  He  tried  to  come  to  her  again,  but  she 
shrunk  away  from  him.  "Don't  come  a-near  me,"  she 
shouted  at  him.  "I  couldn't  thole  you  near  me.  I'd  be 
sick!  .  .  ." 

She  stopped  in  her  speech  and  walked  away  from  him. 
He  stared  after  her,  unable  to  think  or  move.  He  could 
feel  the  smart  of  her  blow  tingling  in  his  face,  and  he  put 
his  hand  up  mechanically  to  his  cheek,  and  as  he  did  so,  he 
saw  that  his  hand  was  still  trembling.  He  could  see  her 
walking  quickly  on,  her  head  erect  and  her  hands  clenched 
tightly  by  her  side.  He  wanted  to  run  after  her,  but  he 
could  not  move.  He  tried  to  call  to  her,  but  his  lips  would 
not  open.  .  .  . 

The  light  was  fading  out  of  the  sky,  and  the  night  was 
covering  up  the  hills  and  fields,  but  still  he  stood  there, 
staring  up  the  road  along  which  she  had  passed  out  of  his 
sight.  People  passed  him  in  the  dusk  and  greeted  him, 
but  he  did  not  answer,  nor  was  he  aware  when  they  turned 
to  look  at  him.  Once,  he  was  conscious  of  a  loud  report 
and  a  clatter  of  feet,  but  he  did  not  think  of  it  or  of  what 
it  meant.  In  his  mind,  smashing  like  the  blows  of  a  ham- 
mer, came  ceaselessly  the  sound  of  Sheila's  voice,  calling 
him  a  coward.  ... 


CHANGING  WINDS  113 

8 

It  was  quite  dark  when  he  moved  away.  His  mouth  was 
very  dry  and  his  eyes  were  hot  and  sore,  and  his  legs 
dragged  as  he  walked.  He  was  tired  and  miserable  and  he 
had  a  frightful  sense  of  age.  That  morning  he  had  wak- 
ened to  manhood,  full  of  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  living 
and  growing  things ;  now,  he  was  like  an  old  man,  longing 
for  death  but  afraid  to  lose  his  life.  There  were  stars 
above  him,  but  no  moon,  and  the  tall  trunks  of  the  trees 
stood  up  like  black  phantoms  before  him,  moaning  and 
crying  in  the  wind.  He  could  hear  the  screech-owls  hoot- 
ing in  the  dark,  and  the  lonely  yelp  of  a  dog  on  a  farm. 

He  began  to  hurry,  walking  quickly  and  then  running, 
afraid  to  look  back,  almost  afraid  to  look  forward  .  .  . 
and  as  he  ran,  suddenly  he  fell  on  something  soft.  His 
hands  slipped  on  wetness  that  smelt.  .  .  . 

In  the  darkness  he  had  fallen  over  the  body  of  the  horse 
which  had  been  shot  while  he  was  standing  where  Sheila 
had  left  him.  He  gaped  at  it  with  distended  eyes,  and 
then,  with  a  loud  cry,  he  jumped  up  and  fled  home,  with 
fear  raging  in  his  heart. 


THE  EIGHTH  CHAPTER 

1 

He  fell  asleep,  after  a  long,  wakeful  night,  and  did  not 
hear  the  maid  who  called  him.  Mr.  Quinn,  when  he  was 
told  of  the  heaviness  of  Henry's  slumber,  said  "Let  him 
lie  on ! "  and  so  it  was  that  he  did  not  rise  until  noon.  He 
came  down  heavy-eyed  and  irritable,  and  wandered  about 
the  garden  in  which  he  took  no  pleasure.  Marsh  came  to 
him  while  he  was  there,  full  of  enthusiasm  because  more 
pupils  had  attended  the  Language  class  than  he  had  an- 
ticipated. 

"That  girl.  Sheila  Morgan,  wasn't  there!" 

"Oh!"  said  Henry. 

"I  thought  she'd  be  certain  to  come.  She  seemed  so 
anxious  to  join  the  class.  Perhaps  she  was  prevented.  I 
hope  you'll  be  able  to  come  to-night,  Henry!  ..." 

Henry  turned  away  impatiently.  "I  don't  think  I  shall 
go  again,"  he  said  in  a  surly  voice. 

Marsh  stared  at  him.    "Not  go  again!"  he  exclaimed. 

"No." 

"But!  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  I'm  sick  of  the  class.  I'm  sick  of  the  whole  thing. 
I'm  sick  of  Irish!  .  .  ." 

Marsh  walked  away  from  him,  walked  so  quickly  that 
Henry  knew  that  he  was  trying  to  subdue  the  sudden  rage 
that  rose  in  him  when  people  spoke  slightingly  of  Irish 
things,  and  for  a  few  moments  he  felt  sorry  and  ready  to 
follow  him  and  apologise  for  what  he  had  said;  but  the 
sorrow  passed  as  quickly  as  it  came. 

"It's  absurd  of  him  to  behave  like  that,"  he  said  to 
himself,  and  went  on  his  way  about  the  garden. 

114 


CHANGING  WINDS  115 

Presently  he  saw  Marsh  approaching  him,  and  he  stood 
still  and  waited  for  him. 

"I'm  sorry,  Henry,"  Marsh  said  when  he  had  come  up 
to  him. 

"It  was  my  fault,"  Henry  replied. 

"I  ought  not  to  have  walked  off  like  that  .  .  .  but  I 
can 't  bear  to  hear  any  one  talking !  .  .  . " 

"I  know  you  can't,"  Henry  interrupted.  "That's  why 
I  ought  not  to  have  said  what  I  did ! ' ' 

But  Marsh  insisted  on  bearing  the  blame.  "I  ought  to 
have  remembered  that  you're  not  feeling  well,"  he  said, 
reproaching  himself.  "I  get  so  interested  in  Ireland  that 
I  forget  about  people's  feelings.  That's  my  chief  fault. 
I  know  it  is.  I  must  try  to  remember.  ...  I  suppose  you 
didn't  really  mean  what  you  said?" 

"Yes,  I  did,"  Henry  replied  quickly. 

"But  why?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  just  don't  want  to.  What's  the  good 
of  it  anyhow?  .  .  ." 

Good  of  it!  Henry  ought  to  have  known  what  a  pas- 
sion of  patriotism  his  scorn  for  the  Language  would  pro- 
voke. 

' '  Oh,  all  right,  John ! "  he  said  impatiently.  "  I  've  heard 
all  that  before,  and  I  don't  want  to  hear  it  again.  You 
can  argue  as  much  as  you  like,  but  I  can't  see  any  sense 
in  wasting  time  on  what's  over.  And  the  Irish  language 
is  over  and  done  with.    Father 's  quite  right ! ' ' 

Marsh's  anger  became  intensified.  "That's  the  Belfast 
spirit  in  you,"  he  exclaimed.  "The  pounds,  shillings  and 
pence  mood!  I  know  what  you  think  of  the  language. 
You  think,  what  is  the  commercial  value  of  it?  Will  it 
enable  a  boy  to  earn  thirty  shillings  a  week  in  an  office? 
Is  it  as  useful  as  Pitman's  Shorthand  ?  That 's  what  you're 
thinking!  ..." 

"No,  it's  not,  but  if  it  were,  it  would  be  very  sensible!" 

"My  God,  Henry,  can't  you  realise  that  a  nation's  lan- 
guage is  the  sound  of  a  nation's  soul?    Don't  you  under- 


116  CHANGING  WINDS 

stand,  man,  that  if  we  can't  speak  our  own  language  then 
our  souls  are  silent,  dumb,  inarticulate?  .  .  .  don't  you 
see  what  I  mean?  .  .  .  and  all  the  time  we're  using  Eng- 
lish, we're  like  people  who  read  translations.  I  don't  care 
whether  it  is  commercially  valuable  or  not.  That 's  not  the 
point.  The  point  is  that  it's  us,  that  it's  our  tongue,  our 
language,  that  it  distinguishes  us  from  the  English,  in- 
sists on  our  difference  from  them.  Do  you  see  what  I 
mean,  Henry?  We  are  different,  aren't  we?  You  realise 
that,  don't  you?  We  are  different  from  the  English,  and 
nothing  will  ever  make  us  like  them.  My  God,  I  'd  hate  to 
be  like  them!  .  .  ." 

Henry  fled  from  him,  and,  scarcely  knowing  what  he 
was  doing,  ran  across  the  fields  towards  Hamilton's  farm. 
As  he  went  up  the  "loanie,"  he  remembered  that  Sheila 
had  struck  him  in  the  face  in  her  rage  at  his  cowardice, 
and  he  stopped  and  wondered  whether  he  should  go  on  or 
not.  And  while  he  was  waiting  in  the  "loanie,"  she  came 
out  of  a  field,  driving  a  cow  before  her. 


She  did  not  speak,  though  he  waited  for  her  to  say  some- 
thing. The  cow  ambled  up  the  "loanie,"  and  Sheila, 
glancing  at  him  as  if  she  did  not  recognise  him,  passed  on, 
following  it. 

"Sheila!"  he  called  after  her,  but  she  did  not  answer, 
nor  did  she  turn  round. 

**I  want  to  speak  to  you,"  he  said,  going  after  her. 

"I  don't  want  to  speak  to  you,"  she  replied,  without 
looking  at  him, 

"But  you  must!  ..."  He  thrust  himself  in  front  of 
her,  and  tried  to  take  hold  of  her  hands,  but  she  eluded 
him.  She  lifted  the  sally  rod  she  had  in  her  hand  and 
threatened  him  with  it.  "I'll  lash  your  face  with  this  if 
you  handle  me,"  she  said. 


CHANGING  WINDS  117 

"All  right,"  he  answered,  dropping  his  hands  and  wait- 
ing for  her  to  beat  his  face  with  the  slender  branch. 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  few  moments,  and  then  she  threw 
the  sally  rod  into  the  hedge. 

"What  do  you  want?"  she  asked,  and  the  tone  of  her 
voice  was  quieter. 

The  cow,  finding  that  it  was  not  being  followed,  cropped 
the  grass  in  the  hedge  and  as  they  stood  there,  facing  each 
other,  they  could  hear  the  soft  munch-munch  as  it  tore  the 
grass  from  the  ground. 

"What  do  you  want?"  Sheila  said  again. 

"I  want  to  speak  to  you!  .  .  ." 

"Well,  speak  away!" 

But  he  did  not  know  what  to  say  to  her.  He  thought 
that  perhaps  if  he  were  to  explain,  she  would  forgive,  but 
now  that  the  opportunity  to  explain  was  open  to  him,  he 
did  not  know  what  to  say. 

"Are  you  turned  dummy  or  what?"  she  asked,  and  the 
cruelty  in  her  voice  was  deliberate. 

"Sheila,"  he  began,  hesitatingly. 

"Well?" 

"  I  'm  sorry  about  last  night ! ' ' 

"What's  the  good  of  bein'  sorry?  ..." 

"I  meant  to  stop  it!  .  .  ." 

"I  daresay,"  she  said,  laughing  at  him. 

"I  did.  I  did,  indeed.  I  can't  help  feeling  nervous. 
I've  always  been  like  that.  I  want  to  do  things  ...  I  try 
to  do  them  .  .  .  but  something  inside  me  runs  away  .  .  . 
that's  what  it  is.  Sheila  ...  it  isn't  me  that  runs  away 
.  .  .  it's  something  inside  me!" 

"Bosh,"  she  said. 

"It's  true.  Sheila.  My  father  could  tell  you  that.  I 
always  funk  things,  not  because  I  want  to  funk  them, 
but  because  I  can't  help  it.  I'd  give  the  world  to  be  able 
to  stop  a  horse,  like  that  one  last  night,  but  I  can't  do  it. 
I  get  paralysed  somehow!  ..." 


118  CHANGING  WINDS 

"I  never  heard  of  any  one  like  that  before,"  she  ex- 
claimed. 

**No,  I  don't  suppose  you  have.  If  you  knew  how 
ashamed  I  feel  of  myself,  you'd  feel  sorry  for  me.  I  was 
awake  the  whole  night!" 

♦'Were  you?" 

**Yes.  I  kept  on  thinking  you  were  angry  with  me  and 
that  I  was  a  coward,  and  I  could  feel  your  fist  in  my 
face!  .  .  ." 

*'I*m  sorry  I  hit  you,  Henry !" 

*'It  doesn't  matter,"  he  replied.  *'It  served  me  right. 
And  then  when  I  did  sleep,  I  kept  on  dreaming  about  it. 
Do  you  know,  Sheila,  I  fell  over  the  horse  last  night  in 
the  dark  .  .  .  they  left  it  lying  in  the  road  after  they  shot 
it  .  .  .  and  my  hands  slithered  in  the  blood !  .  .  . " 

**Aw,  the  poor  baste!"  she  said,  and  she  began  to  cry. 
"The  poor  dumb  baste!" 

"And  I  kept  on  dreaming  of  that  .  .  .  my  hands  drib- 
bling in  blood.  .  .  .  och !  .  .  . " 

He  could  not  go  on  because  the  recollection  of  his  dreams 
horrified  him.  They  had  moved  to  the  side  of  the  *  *  loanie ' ' 
and  he  mechanically  stopped  and  plucked  a  long  grass  and 
began  to  wind  it  round  his  fingers. 

"I  think  and  think  about  things,"  he  murmured  at  last. 

She  put  out  her  hand  and  touched  his  arm.  "Poor 
Henry,"  she  said. 

He  threw  the  grass  away  and  seized  her  hand  in  his. 

"Then  you'll  forgive  me?"  he  said  eagerly. 

She  nodded  her  head. 

"And  you'll  still  be  my  sweetheart,  won't  you,  and  go 
for  walks  with  me?  .  .  ." 

She  withdrew  her  hand  from  his.  "No,  Henry,"  she 
said,  "you  an'  me  can't  go  courtin*  no  more !" 

"But  why?" 

"Because  I  couldn't  marry  a  man  was  afeard  of  things. 
I'd  never  be  happy  with  a  man  like  that.  I 'd  fall  out  with 
you  if  you  were  a  collie,  I  know  I  would,  an'  I'd  be  miserable 


CHANGING  WINDS  119 

if  my  man  hadn't  the  pluck  of  any  other  man.  I'm  sorry 
I  bate  you  last  night,  but  I  'd  do  it  again  if  it  happened  an- 
other time  ...  an '  there  'd  be  no  good  in  that ! ' ' 

"But  you  said  you'd  marry  me!  .  .  ." 

"Och,  sure,  Henry,  you  know  well  I  couldn't  marry  you. 
You  wouldn't  be  let.  I'm  a  poor  girl,  an'  you're  a  high-up 
lad.  Whoever  heard  tell  of  the  like  of  us  marry  in',  ex- 
cept mebbe  in  books.  I  knew  well  we'd  never  marry,  but 
I  liked  goin'  about  with  you,  an'  listenin'  to  your  crack, 
an'  you  kissin'  me  an'  tellin'  me  the  way  you  loved  me. 
You've  a  quare  nice  English  voice  on  you,  an'  you  know  it 
well,  an'  I  just  liked  to  hear  it  .  .  .  but  didn't  I  know 
rightly,  you'd  never  marry  the  like  of  me!" 

**I  will,  Sheila,  I  will!" 

"Ah,  wheesht  with  you.  What  good  'ud  a  man  like  you 
be  to  a  girl  like  me.  I'll  have  this  farm  when  my  Uncle 
Matt  dies,  an'  what  use  'ud  you  be  on  it,  will  you  tell  me, 
you  that  runs  away  cryin'  from  a  frightened  horse?" 

"You  could  sell  the  farm!  ..." 

"Sell  the  farm!"  she  exclaimed.  "Dear  bless  us,  boy, 
what  are  you  sayin'  at  all?  Sell  this  farm,  an'  it's  been 
in  our  family  these  generations  past !  There 's  been  Ham- 
iltons  in  this  house  for  a  hundred  an'  fifty  years  an'  more. 
I  wouldn't  sell  it  for  the  world!" 

"But  I  must  have  you,  Sheila.    I  must  marry  you!" 

"Why  must  you?" 

"I  just  must!  .  .  ." 

She  turned  to  look  at  the  grazing  cow,  and  then  turned 
back  to  him.  "That's  chile's  talk,"  she  said.  "You  must 
because  you  must.  Away  on  home  now,  an'  lave  me  to  do 
my  work.  Sure,  you  're  not  left  school  yet ! ' '  She  left 
him  abruptly,  and  walked  up  to  the  cow,  slapping  its  flanks 
and  shouting  ' '  Kimmup,  there !  Kimmup ! ' '  and  the  beast 
tossed  its  head,  and  ran  forward  a  few  paces,  and  then 
sauntered  slowly  up  the  "loanie"  towards  the  byre. 

"Good-bye,  Henry!"  Sheila  called  out  when  she  had 
gone  a  little  way. 


1«0  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Will  you  be  at  the  class  to-night!"  he  shouted  after 
her. 

"I  will  not,"  she  answered.  "I'm  not  goin'  to  the  class 
no  more!" 

He  watched  her  as  she  went  on  up  the  "loanie"  after 
the  cow,  hoping  that  she  would  turn  again  and  call  to  him, 
but  she  did  not  look  round.  He  could  hear  her  calling  to 
the  beast,  "Gwon  now!  Gwon  out  of  that  now!"  and 
then  he  saw  the  cow  turn  into  the  yard,  and  in  a  moment 
or  two  Sheila  followed  it.  He  thought  that  she  must  turn 
to  look  at  him  then,  and  he  was  ready  to  wave  his  hand  to 
her,  but  she  did  not  look  round.  "Gwon  now!  Gwon  up 
out  of  that!"  was  all  that  he  heard  her  saying. 


His  father  was  standing  at  the  front  door  when  he  re- 
turned home.  Mr.  Quinn's  face  was  set  and  grave  look- 
ing, and  he  did  not  smile  at  his  son. 

'  *  I  want  you,  Henry, ' '  he  said,  beckoning  to  him. 

"Yes,  father?"  Henry  replied,  looking  at  his  father  in 
a  questioning  fashion.    ' '  Is  anything  wrong  ? ' ' 

Mr.  Quinn  did  not  answer.  He  turned  and  led  the  way 
to  the  library. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said,  when  Henry  had  entered  the  room 
and  shut  the  door. 

"What  is  it,  father?" 

"Henry,  what's  between  you  an'  that  niece  of  Matt 
Hamilton's?" 

"Between  us!" 

"Aye,  between  you.  You  were  out  on  the  Ballymena 
road  with  her  last  night  when  I  thought  you  were  in  bed 
with  a  sore  head." 

All  the  romance  of  his  love  for  Sheila  Morgan  suddenly 
died  out,  and  he  was  conscious  of  nothing  but  his  father's 
stem  look  and  the  stiff  set  of  his  lips  as  he  sat  there  at 


CHANGING  WINDS  121 

his  writing-table,  demanding  what  there  was  between 
Henry  and  Sheila. 

"  I  'm  in  love  with  her,  father ! "  he  answered. 

"Are  you?" 

"Yes,  father,  but  she's  not  in  love  with  me.  She's  just 
told  me  so." 

"You've  seen  her  this  mornin'  again?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  I'm  glad  she  has  more  sense  nor  you  seem  to 
have.  Damn  it,  Henry,  are  you  a  fool  or  what?  The 
whole  of  Ballymartin's  talkin'  about  the  pair  of  you.  Do 
you  think  that  you  can  walk  up  the  road  with  a  farm-girl, 
huggin'  her  an'  kissin'  her  an'  doin'  God  knows  what,  an' 
the  whole  place  not  know  about  it?" 

"I  didn't  think  of  that,  father!  ..." 

"Didn't  think  of  it!  .  .  .  Look  here,  Henry,  Sheila  Mor- 
^ran  's  a  respectable  girl,  do  you  hear  ?  an '  I  '11  not  have  you 
makin'  a  fool  of  her.  I  know  there's  some  men  thinks 
they  have  a  right  to  their  tenants'  daughters,  but  by  God 
if  you  harmed  a  girl  on  my  land,  Henry,  I'd  shoot  you 
with  my  own  hands.     Do  you  hear  me?" 

Henry  looked  at  his  father  uncomprehendingly.  ' '  Harm 
her,  father!"  he  said. 

' '  Aye,  harm  her !  What  do  you  think  a  girl  like  that,  as 
good-lookin'  as  her,  gets  out  of  goin'  up  the  road  with  a 
lad  like  you  that's  born  above  her?  A  bellyful  of  pain, 
that's  all!" 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  father!" 

"Well,  it's  time  you  learned.  I'll  talk  to  you  plumb  an' 
plain,  Henry.  I'll  not  let  you  seduce  a  girl  on  my  land, 
do  you  hear  ?  They  can  do  that  sort  of  thing  in  England, 
if  they  like  .  .  .  it's  nothin'  to  me  what  the  English  do 
.  .  .  but  by  God  I'll  not  have  a  girl  on  my  land  ruined  by 
you  or  by  anybody  else ! ' ' 

]\Ir.  Quinn's  voice  was  more  angry  than  Henry  had  ever 
heard  it. 


lt!t  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Father,"  Henry  said,  "I  want  to  marry  Sheila!  .  .  ." 

"What?" 

Mr.  Quinn's  fist  had  been  raised  as  if  he  were  about  to 
bang  his  desk  to  emphasise  his  words,  but  he  was  so  star- 
tled by  Henry's  speech  that  he  forgot  his  intention,  and 
he  sat  there,  open-mouthed  and  wide-eyed,  with  his  fist 
still  suspended  in  the  air,  so  that  Henry  almost  laughed 
at  his  comical  look. 

"What's  that  you  say?"  he  said,  when  he  had  recovered 
from  his  astonishment. 

' '  I  want  to  marry  her,  but  she  won 't  have  me ! " 

Mr.  Quinn's  anger  left  him.  He  leant  back  in  his  re- 
volving chair  and  laughed. 

"By  God,  that's  good!"  he  said.    "By  God,  it  is! 
Marry  her!    Oh,  dear,  oh,  dear!" 

"I  don't  know  why  you're  laughing,  father!  ..." 

"An'  I  thought  you  up  to  no  good.  Oh,  ho,  ho!"  He 
took  out  his  handkerchief  and  rubbed  his  eyes.  "Well, 
thank  God,  the  girl's  got  more  wit  nor  you  have.  In  the 
name  of  God,  lad,  what  would  you  marry  her  for?" 

"Because  I  love  her,  father!" 

"My  backside  to  that  for  an  answer!"  Mr.  Quinn 
snapped.  "You  know  well  you  couldn't  marry  her,  a  girl 
Uke  that!" 

"I  don't  know  it  at  all!  .  .  ." 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you  why  then.  Because  you're  a  gentle- 
man an'  she  isn't  a  lady,  that's  why.  There's  hundreds 
of  years  of  breedin '  in  you,  Henry,  an '  there 's  no  breedin ' 
at  all  in  her,  nothin'  but  good  nature  an'  good  looks !  .  .  ." 

"The  Hamiltons  have  lived  at  their  farm  for  more  than 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  father ! ' ' 

"So  they  have,  an'  decent,  good  stock  they  are,  but  that 
doesn't  put  them  on  our  level.  Listen,  Henry,  the  one 
thing  that's  most  important  in  this  world  is  blood  an' 
breedin'.  There's  people  goes  about  the  world  sayin* 
everybody's  as  good  as  everybody  else,  but  you've  only 


CHANGING  WINDS  123 

got  to  see  people  when  there's  bother  on  to  find  out  who's 
good  an'  who  isn't.  It's  at  times  like  that  that  blood  an' 
breedin'  come  out!  ..." 

It  was  then  that  Henry  told  his  father  of  his  cowardice 
when  the  horse  ran  away.  He  told  the  whole  story,  and 
insisted  on  Sheila's  scorn  for  him.  Mr.  Quinn  did  not 
speak  while  the  story  was  being  told.  He  sat  at  the  desk 
with  his  chin  buried  in  his  fingers,  listening  patiently. 
Once  or  twice  he  looked  up  when  Henry  hesitated  in  his 
recital,  and  once  he  seemed  as  if  he  were  about  to  put  out 
his  hand  to  his  son,  but  he  did  not  do  so.  He  did  not 
speak  or  move  until  the  story  was  ended. 

"I'm  glad  you  told  me,  Henry,"  he  said  quietly  when 
Henry  had  finished.  "I'm  sorry  I  thought  you  were 
meanin'  the  girl  an  injury.  I  beg  your  pardon  for  that, 
Henry.  The  girl's  a  decent  girl,  a  well-meant  girl  ...  a 
well-meant  girl!  ...  I  wish  to  God,  you  were  at  Trinity, 
my  son!  Come  on,  now,  an'  have  somethin'  to  ate.  Be- 
god,  I'm  hungry.  I  could  ate  a  horse.  I  could  ate  two 
horses!  ..."  He  put  his  arm  in  Henry's  and  they  left 
the  library  together.  "You'll  get  over  it,  my  son,  you'll 
get  over  it.  It  does  a  lad  good  to  break  his  heart  now  an' 
again.  Teaches  him  the  way  the  world  works !  Opens  his 
mind  for  him,  an'  lets  him  get  a  notion  of  the  feel  of 
things!  .  .  ." 

They  were  just  outside  the  dining-room  when  he  said 
that.  Mr.  Quinn  turned  and  looked  at  Henry  for  a  sec- 
ond or  two,  and  it  seemed  to  Henry  that  he  was  about  to 
say  something  intimate  to  him,  but  he  did  not  do  so:  he 
turned  away  quickly  and  opened  the  door. 

"I  suppose  John  Marsh  is  eatin'  all  the  food,"  he  said 
with  extraordinary  heartiness.  "Are  you  eatin'  all  the 
food,  John  Marsh?  I'll  wring  your  damned  neck  if  you 
are!  .  .  ." 


1«4  CHANGING  WINDS 


That  evening,  after  dinner,  Mr.  Quinn  and  John  Marsh 
were  sitting  together.  Henry  had  gone  out  of  the  room 
for  a  while,  leaving  Mr.  Quinn  to  smoke  a  cigar  while 
John  IMarsh  corrected  some  exercises  by  the  students  of 
the  Language  class. 

"Marsh !"  Mr.  Quinn  said  suddenly,  after  a  long  silence. 

Marsh  looked  up  quickly.  "Yes,  Mr.  Quinn!"  he  re- 
plied. 

"Henry's  in  love!  ..." 

"Is  he?" 

"Yes.  With  that  girl,  Sheila  Morgan,  Matt  Hamilton's 
niece!" 

Marsh  put  his  exercises  aside.  "Dear  me!"  he  ex- 
claimed. 

There  did  not  appear  to  be  anything  else  to  say. 

"So  I'm  goin'  to  send  him  away,"  Mr.  Quinn  went  on. 

"Away?" 

"Yes.  I  don't  quite  know  where  I  shall  send  him.  It's 
too  soon  yet  to  send  him  up  to  Trinity.  I've  a  notion  of 
sendin'  you  an'  him  on  a  walkin'  tour  in  Connacht.  The 
pair  of  you  can  talk  that  damned  language  'til  you're  sick 
of  it  with  the  people  that  understands  it ! " 

Marsh  was  delighted.  He  thought  that  Mr.  Quinn 's 
proposal  was  excellent,  and  he  was  certain  that  it  would 
be  very  good  for  Henry  to  come  into  contact  with  people 
to  whom  the  language  was  native. 

"Wheesht  a  minute,  Marsh!"  Mr.  Quinn  interrupted. 
"I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  Henry.  It's  a  big  thing  for 
a  lad  of  his  age  to  fall  in  love ! ' ' 

"I  suppose  it  is." 

"There's  no  supposin'  about  it.  It  is!  He's  just  at 
the  age  when  women  begin  to  matter  to  a  man,  an '  I  don 't 
want  him  to  go  an'  get  into  any  bother  over  the  head  of 
them!" 

"Bother?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  125 

"Aye.     Do  you  never  think  about  women,  John  Marsh?" 

*'0h,  yes.  Sometimes.  One  can't  help  it  now  and 
then!  .  .  . 

"No,  begod,  one  can't!"  Mr.  Quinn  exclaimed.  "Do 
you  know  this,  John  Marsh,  I  never  can  make  out  whether 
God  did  a  good  day's  work  the  day  He  made  women! 
They're  the  most  unsettlin'  things  in  the  world.  You'd 
think  to  look  at  me,  I  was  a  fairly  quiet  sort  of  a  steady 
man,  wouldn't  you?  Well,  I'm  not.  There's  whiles  when 
a  woman  makes  my  head  buzz  .  .  .  just  the  look  of  her, 
an'  the  way  she  turns  her  head  or  moves  her  legs.  I'm  a 
hefty  fellow,  John  Marsh,  for  all  I'm  the  age  I  am,  an'  I 
know  what  it  is  to  feel  damn  near  silly  with  desire.  But 
all  the  same,  I  can  keep  control  of  myself,  an'  I've  never 
wronged  a  woman  in  my  life.  That's  a  big  thing  for  any 
man  to  be  able  to  say,  an'  there's  few  that  can  say  it,  but 
1  tell  you  it 's  been  a  hell  of  a  fight !  .  .  . " 

He  lay  back  in  the  chair  and  puffed  smoke  above  his 
head  for  a  while.  "A  hell  of  a  fight,"  he  murmured,  and 
then  did  not  speak  for  a  while. 

"Yes?"  said  John  Marsh. 

"I've  been  down  the  lanes  of  a  summer  night,  an'  seen 
young  girls  from  the  farms  about,  with  fine  long  hair 
hangin'  down  their  backs,  an'  them  smilin'  an'  lovely  .  .  . 
an'  begod,  I've  had  to  hurry  past  them,  hurry  hard,  damn 
near  run!  .  .  .  Mind  you,  they  were  good  girls,  John 
Marsh!  I  don't  want  you  to  think  they  were  out  lookin* 
for  men.  They  weren't.  But  they  were  young,  an'  they 
were  just  learnin'  things,  an'  I  daresay  I  could  have  had 
them  if  I'd  tried  ...  an'  I  don't  think  there's  any  real 
harm  in  men  an'  women  goin'  together  .  .  .  but  we've  set- 
tled, all  of  us,  that,  real  or  no  real,  there  is  some  sort  of 
harm  in  it,  an'  we've  agreed  to  condemn  that  sort  of  thing, 
an'  so  I  submit  to  the  law.     Do  you  follow  me?" 

"No,  not  quite.  Those  sort  of  things  don't  arise  for 
me.     I'm  a  Catholic  and  I  obey  the  Church's  laws!  ..." 

"I  know  you  do.    But  I'm  a  man,  not  a  Catholic!  .  .  . 


126  CHANGING  WINDS 

Now,  don't  lose  your  temper.  I  couldn't  help  lettin'  that 
slip  out.  .  .  .  What  I  mean  is  this.  There's  a  lot  of  way- 
wardness in  all  of  us,  that's  pleasant  enough  if  it's  checked 
when  it  gets  near  the  limit  of  things,  but  there  has  to  be  a 
check!" 

"Yes?"  Marsh  said.  "And  in  my  case  the  check  is 
the  Church,  the  expression  on  earth  of  God's  will!  .  .  ." 

"Well,  in  my  case  it  isn't.  In  my  case  it's  my  sense  of 
responsibility  as  a  gentleman.  We've  got  ourselves  into 
crowds  that  must  be  controlled  somehow,  and  there  isn't 
much  room  for  wayward  people  in  a  crowd.  That's  why 
geniuses  get  such  a  rotten  time.  Now,  my  notion  of  a 
gentleman  is  a  man  who  controls  the  crowd  by  controllin' 
himself.  D'you  follow  me?  He  knows  that  the  crowd '11 
bust  up  an'  become  a  dirty  riot  if  it's  let  out  of  control, 
an'  he  knows  that  he  can  influence  it  best  an'  keep  the 
whip  hand  of  it,  if  it  knows  that  he  isn't  doin'  anything 
that  he  tells  it  not  to  do.    D'you  see?" 

*  *  Yes, ' '  Marsh  said.    "  That 's  the  Catholic  religion !  .  . . " 

"I  know  as  well  as  I'm  livin',"  Mr.  Quinn  went  on, 
"that  I  have  enough  power  over  myself  to  know  when  to 
stop  an'  when  to  go  on.  That's  been  bred  in  me.  That's 
why  I'm  a  gentleman.  But  I  know  that  if  I  let  myself 
do  things  that  I  can  control,  I'll  be  givin'  an  example 
to  hundreds  of  other  people  who  aren  't  gentlemen  an '  can 't 
control  themselves  .  .  .  don't  know  when  to  stop  an'  when 
to  go  on  ...  an'  so  I  don't  do  them.  An'  that's  a  gen- 
tleman's job,  John  Marsh,  an'  when  gentlemen  stop  that, 
then  begod  it's  good-bye  to  a  decent  community.  That's 
why  England's  goin'  to  blazes  .  .  .  because  her  gentlemen 
have  forgotten  the  first  job  of  the  gentleman :  to  keep  him- 
self in  strict  control,  to  be  reticent,  to  conceal  his  feelings!" 

But  John  ]\Iarsh  would  not  agree  with  him.  "England 
is  going  to  blazes,"  he  said,  "because  England  has  lost  her 
religion.  If  England  were  Catholic,  England  would  be 
noble  again!  ..." 

"Just  like  France  and  Spain  and  Italy,"  Mr.  Quinn 


CHANGING  WINDS  127 

replied.  *'Bosh,  John  Marsh,  bosh!  I  tell  you,  the  test 
of  a  nation  is  this  question  of  gentlemen !  .  .  . " 

* '  The  test  of  a  nation  is  its  belief  in  God  ...  its  church, ' ' 
said  John  Marsh. 

"Well,  Ireland  believes  in  God,  doesn't  it?  The  Catholic 
Church  is  fairly  strong  here,  isn't  it?  An'  what  sort  of 
a  Church  is  it?  A  gentleman's  church  or  a  peasant's 
church?  Look  at  the  priests,  John  Marsh,  look  at  them! 
]\Iy  God,  what  bounders !  Little  greedy,  grubbin'  blighters, 
livin'  for  their  Easter  offerin's,  an'  doin'  damn  little  for 
their  money.  What  do  you  think  takes  them  into  the 
church?  Love  of  God?  Love  of  man?  No,  bedam  if  it 
is.  Conceit  an'  snobbery  an'  the  desire  for  a  soft  job  takes 
about  nine  out  of  ten  of  them.  .  .  .  Well,  well,  I'm  runnin' 
away  from  myself.  What  I  want  to  say  is  this :  the  Cath- 
olic church '11  never  be  worth  a  damn  in  Ireland  or  any- 
where else,  'til  its  priests  are  gentlemen.  No  church  is 
worth  a  damn  unless  its  priests  are  gentlemen!" 

"But  what  do  you  mean  by  gentlemen,  Mr.  Quinn?" 

' '  I  mean  men  who  are  keepin '  a  tight  hold  on  themselves. 
Mortifyin'  their  flesh  ...  all  that  sort  of  stuff  ...  so 
that  they  won't  give  the  mob  an  excuse  for  breakin'  loose !" 

Marsh  wondered  why  Mr.  Quinn  was  talking  in  this 
strain  and  tried  to  draw  him  back  to  the  subject  of  Henry 's 
love  of  Sheila. 

"I'm  comin'  to  that,"  said  Mr.  Quinn,  pointing  his 
cigar  at  him.  "Listen,  John,  there  were  two  men  that 
might  have  done  big  things  in  Irelan'  and  Englan' — Par- 
nell  an'  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  an'  they  didn't  because 
they  weren't  gentlemen.  They  couldn't  control  them- 
selves. There  isn't  a  house  in  Ulster  that  hasn't  got  the 
photographs  of  those  two  men  in  some  album.  ..." 

"Pamell?"  Marsh  exclaimed. 

"Aye,  Parnell.  Him  an'  Randy  Churchill  side  by  side 
in  the  one  album !  Lord  bless  me,  John  Marsh,  the  Ulster 
people  took  great  pride  in  Parnell,  even  the  bitterest  Or- 
angeman among  them,  because  he  was  a  man,  an'  not  a 


1«8  CHANGING  WINDS 

gas-bag  like  Dan  O'Connell.  Of  course,  he  was  a  Protes- 
tant! .  .  .  But  he  couldn't  keep  from  nuzzlin'  over  a 
woman  ...  an'  up  went  everything.  An'  Randy  Church- 
ill ...  I  mind  him  well,  a  flushed-lookin '  man.  ...  I 
heard  him  talkin '  in  Belfast  one  time  ...  he  bust  up  every- 
thing because  he  would  not  control  himself.  If  he'd  been 
a  gentleman  .  .  .  but  he  wasn't  .  .  .  the  Churchills  never 
were.  .  .  .  Nor  was  Pamell.  Well,  now,  I  don't  want 
Henry  to  go  to  bits  like  that.  Henry's  got  power  of  some 
sort,  John  ...  I  don't  know  what  sort  .  .  .  but  there's 
power  in  him  .  .  .  and  I  want  it  to  come  out  right.  He's 
the  sort  that'll  go  soft  on  women  if  he's  not  careful.  He'd 
be  off  after  every  young,  nice-lookin'  girl  he  meets  if  he 
were  let  ...  an '  God  knows  what  the  end  of  that  would  be. 
There's  this  girl,  Sheila  Morgan  .  .  .  you've  seen 
her?  .  .  ." 

Marsh  nodded  his  head,  and  said,  "She  comes  to  the 
Language  class." 

"Well,  you  know  the  sort  she  is:  fine,  healthy,  good- 
lookin',  lusty  girl.  That  sort  stirs  the  blood  in  a  lad  like 
Henry.  I  want  him  to  get  into  the  state  in  which  he  can 
look  at  her  an'  lave  her  alone!    Do  you  follow  me?" 

"Yes." 

"He's  not  in  that  state  now.  He's  soft,  oh,  he's  damned 
soft.  Look  here,  John  Marsh,  do  you  know  what  I  think 
about  young  fellows?  I  think  they're  the  finest  things  in 
the  world.  Youth,  I  mean.  An'  I  figure  it  out  this  way, 
that  Youth  has  the  right  to  three  things :  love  an '  work  an ' 
fun;  an'  it  ought  to  have  them  about  equally.  The  only 
use  of  old  people  like  me  is  to  see  that  the  young  'uns  don 't 
get  the  proportions  all  wrong,  too  much  love  an '  not  enough 
work,  or  the  other  way  round.  Henry's  very  likely  to  get 
them  all  wrong,  an'  I  want  to  see  that  he  doesn't.  Now, 
you  understand  me,  don't  you?  I'm  a  long-winded  man, 
an'  it's  hard  to  make  out  what  I'm  drivin'  at,  but  that  can't 
be  helped.  Everybody  has  a  nature,  an'  I  have  mine,  an' 
bedam  to  it ! " 


CHANGING  WINDS  129 

''What  do  you  want  me  to  do?"  Marsh  asked,  putting 
his  exercises  together. 

* '  I  want  you  to  try  an '  put  some  big  wish  into  his  heart, ' ' 
Mr.  Quinn  replied.  "Try  an'  make  him  as  eager  about 
Irelan'  as  you  are.  I  want  him  to  spend  himself  for  some- 
thing that's  bigger  than  he  is,  instead  of  spendin'  himself 
on  something  that's  smaller  than  he  is." 

"But  why  not  do  that  yourself,  Mr.  Quinn?" 

Mr.  Quinn  got  up  from  his  chair  and  walked  about  the 
room.  "  It 's  very  hard  for  a  man  to  talk  to  his  son  in  the 
way  that  a  stranger  can,"  he  said.  "An'  besides  I  ...  I 
love  Henry,  John  Marsh,  an'  my  love  for  him  upsets  my 
balance ! ' ' 

"Can't  you  control  that,  Mr.  Quinn?"  Marsh  asked. 

' '  Control  it !  Begod,  John  Marsh,  if  you  were  a  father 
you  wouldn't  ask  such  a  damn  silly  question.  Here,  have 
a  cigar !     Henry 's  comin '  back ! ' ' 

When  Henry  entered  the  room,  his  father  was  lying  back 
in  his  chair,  puffing  smoke  into  the  air,  while  John  Marsh 
was  cutting  the  end  of  his  cigar. 

"The  post's  come  in,"  he  said. 

"Anything  for  me?"  his  father  asked. 

"No.  There  was  only  one  letter.  For  me.  It's  from 
Ninian  Graham!" 

' '  Nice  chap,  Ninian  Graham, ' '  Mr.  Quinn  murmured. 

"He  wants  me  to  go  over  to  Boveyhayne  for  a  while." 

"Does  he?" 

"Yes.  Gilbert  Farlow's  staying  with  them.  I  should 
like  to  go." 

"Well,  we'll  see  about  it  in  the  morning,"  said  Mr. 
Quinn.  "I  was  thinking  of  sending  you  on  a  walking  tour 
with  John  here.     To  Connacht ! ' ' 

"You  could  talk  to  the  people  in  Irish,  Henry,"  John 
added. 

Henry  twirled  Ninian 's  letter  in  his  fingers.  "I'd  like 
to  go  to  Boveyhayne,"  he  said.  "I  want  to  see  Ninian  and 
Gilbert  again!  ..." 


180  CHANGING  WINDS 

"But  the  language,  Henry!  ..." 

"I  hate  the  damned  language!"  Henry  exclaimed  pas- 
sionately.   "I'm  sick  of  Ireland.     I'm  sick  of!  .  .  ." 

Mr.  Quinn  got  up  and  put  his  hand  on  Henry's  shoulder. 

"All  right,  Henry,"  he  said.  "You  can  go  to  Bovey- 
haynel" 


Up  in  his  bedroom,  Henry  re-read  Ninian's  letter,  and 
then  he  replied  to  it.    Ninian  wrote: 

Blighter: 

Gilbert's  here.  He's  been  here  for  a  week,  and  he  says 
you  ought  to  be  here,  too.  So  do  I.  Can't  you  come  to 
Boveyhayne  for  a  fortnight  anyhow?  If  you  can  stay 
longer,  do.  Gilbert  says  it's  awful  to  think  that  you're 
going  to  that  hole  in  Dublin  where  there  isn't  even  a  Boat 
Race,  and  the  least  you  can  do  is  to  come  and  have  a  good 
time  here.  I  can't  think  why  Irish  people  want  to  be 
Irish.  It  seems  so  damn  silly.  Gilbert's  writing  a  play. 
He  has  done  about  a  page  and  a  half  of  it,  and  it's  most 
awful  bilge.  He  keeps  on  reading  it  out  to  me.  He  read 
some  of  it  to  me  last  night  when  I  was  brushing  my  teeth 
which  is  a  damn  dangerous  thing  to  do,  and  I  had  to  clout 
his  head  severely  for  him.  He  is  a  chap.  He  got  poor 
Mary  into  a  row  on  Sunday.  We  took  him  to  church  with 
us,  and  when  the  Vicar  was  reading  the  first  lesson,  all 
about  King  Solomon  swanking  before  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
and  showing  off  his  gold  plate,  Gilbert  turned  to  Mary  and 
said  out  loud,  *' Ostentatious  chap,  Solomon!  Anybody 
could  see  he  was  a  Jew!"  and  Mary  burst  out  laughing. 
The  Vicar  was  frightfully  sick  about  it,  and  jawed  Gilbert 
after  the  service,  and  the  mater  told  Mary  the  truth  about 
herself.  I  must  say  it  was  rather  funny.  I  very  nearly 
laughed  myself.  Do  be  a  decent  chap  and  come  over  soon. 
You'll  just  be  in  time  for  the  mackerel  fishing.     Gilbert 


CHANGING  WINDS  131 

and  Mary  and  I  went  out  with  Jim  Batteribury  yesterday 
and  caught  dozens. 

Your  affectionate  friend, 

Ninian  Graham. 

Henry's  reply  was: 

Dear  Ninian: 

Thanks  awfully.  I'll  come  as  soon  as  I  can  get  away. 
I  spoke  to  my  father  to-night,  and  he  says  I  can  go  to 
Boveyhayne.  I'll  send  a  telegram  to  you,  telling  you  when 
to  expect  me.  I'm  looking  forward  to  reading  Gilbert's 
play.  I  hope  he'll  have  more  of  it  written  by  the  time  I 
get  to  Boveyhayne.  A  page  and  a  half  isn't  much,  is  itf 
and  I  don't  wonder  you  get  sick  of  hearing  it  over  and, 
over.  I  shall  have  to  write  something,  too,  but  I  don't 
know  what  to  write  about.  We  can  talk  of  that  when  we 
meet.  It  is  awfully  kind  of  Mrs.  Graham  to  have  me  again. 
Please  thank  her  for  me,  and  give  my  love  to  Mary  and 
Gilbert,  and  tell  him  not  to  be  an  old  ass,  yapping  like  that 
in  church.    No  wonder  the  vicar  was  sick. 

Your  affectionate  friend, 

Henry  Quinn. 


THE  NINTH  CHAPTER 


Three  days  later,  Henry  left  Ballymartin  and  travelled  to 
Belfast  in  the  company  of  John  Marsh.  In  Belfast  they 
were  to  separate:  ]\Iarsh  was  to  return  to  Dublin  and 
Henry  was  to  cross  by  the  night  boat  to  Liverpool,  and 
proceed  from  there  to  London,  and  then  on  from  Waterloo 
to  Boveyhayne.  Marsh,  a  little  sad  because  the  Bally- 
martin classes  must  now  collapse,  but  greatly  glad  to  return 
to  the  middle  of  Irish  activities  in  Dublin,  had  turned 
over  in  his  mind  what  Mr.  Quinn  had  said  about  Henry's 
future,  and  he  was  wondering  exactly  what  he  should  say 
to  Henry.  They  had  several  hours  to  spend  in  Belfast, 
and  Marsh  proposed  that  they  should  visit  the  shipyards 
and,  if  they  had  time,  inspect  a  linen  mill;  and  Henry, 
who  had  always  felt  great  pride  when  he  saw  the  stocks  and 
gantries  of  the  shipyards  and  reflected  that  out  of  the 
multitudinous  activities  of  Ulster  men  the  greatest  ships  in 
the  world  were  created,  eagerly  assented  to  Marsh's  pro- 
posal. Mr.  Quinn  had  given  them  a  letter  of  introduction 
to  a  member  of  the  great  firm  of  Harland  and  Wolff,  and 
Mr.  Arthurs,  because  of  his  friendship  for  Mr.  Quinn,  con- 
ducted them  through  the  yard  himself. 

They  stayed  so  long  in  the  shipyard  that  there  was  no 
time  left  for  the  visit  to  the  linen  mill,  and  so,  when  they 
had  had  tea,  they  set  off  to  the  Great  Northern  Railway 
station  where  Marsh  was  to  catch  his  train  to  Dublin. 

^Ir.  Arthurs'  immense  energy  and  his  devotion  to  his 
work  and  his  extraordinary  pride  not  only  in  the  shipyard 
but  in  the  men  who  worked  in  it  had  made  a  deep  impres- 

132 


CHANGING  WINDS  13^ 

sion  on  Marsh  and  Henry.  He  seemed  to  know  the  most 
minute  details  of  the  vast  complication  of  functions  that 
operated  throughout  the  works.  While  they  were  passing 
through  one  of  the  shops,  a  horn  had  blown,  and  instantly 
a  great  crowd  of  men  and  lads  had  poured  out  of  the  yard 
on  their  way  to  their  dinner,  and  Mr,  Arthurs,  standing 
aside  to  watch  them,  and  greeting  here  one  and  there  an- 
other, turned  to  Marsh  and  said,  "Those  are  my  pals!" 
Thousands  of  men,  grimy  from  their  work,  each  of  them 
possessed  of  some  peculiar  skill  or  great  strength,  thousands 
of  them,  "pals"  of  this  one  man  whose  active  brain  con- 
ceived ships  of  great  magnitude  and  endurance!  Mr.  Ar- 
thurs had  passed  through  the  shipyard  from  apprenticeship 
to  directorship:  he  had  worked  in  this  shop  and  in  that, 
just  as  the  men  worked,  and  had  learned  more  about  ship- 
building than  it  seemed  possible  for  any  man  to  learn.  * '  He 
knows  how  many  rivets  there  are  in  the  Oceanic,"  one  of 
the  foremen  in  the  yard  said  to  Marsh  when  they  were 
being  shown  round.  "He's  the  great  boy  for  buildin' 
boats!" 

Marsh,  until  then,  had  never  met  a  man  like  Mr.  Arthurs. 
His  life  had  been  passed  in  Dublin,  among  people  who 
thought  and  talked  and  speculated,  but  seldom  did;  and 
he  had  been  habituated  to  scoffing  talk  at  Belfast  men 
.  .  .  "money-grubbers"  .  .  .  mitigated,  now  and  then, 
by  a  grudging  tribute  to  their  grit  and  great  energy  and 
resource.  Mr.  Arthurs  had  none  of  the  money-grubbing 
spirit  in  him ;  his  devotion  to  his  work  of  shipbuilding  was 
as  pure  as  the  devotion  of  a  Samurai  to  the  honour  of 
Japan;  and  Marsh,  who  was  instantly  sensitive  to  the 
presence  of  a  noble  man,  felt  strongly  drawn  to  him. 

*  *  I  wish  we  could  get  him  on  our  side,  Henry ! "  he  said, 
as  they  sat  in  the  station,  waiting  for  the  train  to  draw  up 
to  the  platform.  "I'd  give  all  the  lawyers  we've  got  for 
that  one  man!" 

"Father  thinks  Tom  Arthurs  is  the  greatest  shipbuilder 
that's  ever  lived,"  Henry  answered. 


y 


134  CHANGING  WINDS 

*'He  might  be  the  greatest  Irishman  that's  ever  lived," 
Marsh  rejoined,  "if  he'd  only  give  a  quarter  of  the  devo- 
tion to  Ireland  that  he  gives  to  ships." 

"I  suppose  he  thinks  he's  giving  all  his  devotion  to 
Ireland  now  .  .  .  and  he  is  really.  Isn't  he,  John?  His 
firm  is  famous  all  over  the  world,  and  he's  one  of  the 
men  that  have  made  it  famous.  It  must  be  very  fine 
for  him  to  think  that  he's  doing  big  things  for  his  coun- 
try!" 

Marsh  nodded  his  head.  "We're  rather  foolish  about 
Belfast  in  Dublin, ' '  he  said.  ' '  After  all,  real  work  is  done 
here,  isn't  it?  And  the  chief  industry  of  Dublin  .  .  .  what 
is  it?  Absolutely  unproductive!  Porter!  Barrels  and 
barrels  of  it,  floating  down  the  Liffey  and  nothing,  nothing 
real,  floating  back!  I  like  that  man  Arthurs.  I  wish  to 
heaven  we  had  him  on  our  side ! ' ' 

"He's  a  Unionist,"  Henry  replied. 

It  occurred  to  Marsh,  in  the  middle  of  his  reflections  on 
Tom  Arthurs,  that  he  should  ask  Henry  what  he  proposed 
to  do  for  Ireland. 

"I'd  like  to  do  work  as  big  and  fine  as  Arthurs  does," 
he  said.    "Wouldn't  you,  Henry?" 

"Yes." 

"What  do  you  propose  to  do,  Henry?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  haven't  thought  definitely  about  that 
sort  of  thing  yet.  I've  just  imagined  I'd  like  to  do  some- 
thing.   I'm  afraid  I  can't  build  ships!  ..." 

"There  are  other  things  besides  ships,  Henry!" 

"I  know  that.  John,  I'm  going  to  say  something  that'll 
make  you  angry,  but  I  can't  help  that.  When  Tom  Ar- 
thurs was  showing  us  over  the  Island,  I  couldn  't  help  think- 
ing that  all  that  Gaelic  movement  was  a  frightful  waste 
of  time ! "  Marsh  made  a  gesture,  but  Henry  would  not  let 
him  speak.  "No,  don't  interrupt  me,  John,"  he  said. 
"I  must  say  what  I  feel.  Look  at  the  Language  class  at 
Bally  martin.  What's  been  the  good  of  all  the  work  you 
put  into  it?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  135 

"We've  given  them  a  knowledge  of  a  national  separate- 
ness,  haven 't  we  ? " 

"Have  we?  They  were  keener  on  the  dances,  John.  I 
don't  believe  we've  done  anything  of  the  sort,  and  if  we 
had,  I  think  it  would  be  a  pity ! ' ' 

"A  pity!  A  pity  to  make  the  Irish  people  realise  that 
they're  Irish  and  different  from  the  English!" 

"Oh,  you  won't  agree,  I  know,  John,  but  I  think  Tom 
Arthurs  is  doing  better  work  for  Ireland  than  you  are," 
Henry  retorted. 

"He's  doing  good  work,  very  good  work,  but  not  better 
work  than  I  am.  He 's  establishing  an  Irish  industry,  but 
I'm  helping  to  establish  an  Irish  nation,  an  Irish 
soul!  .  .  ." 

"That's  what  you  want  to  do,  but  I  wonder  whether  it's 
what  you  are  doing,"  said  Henry. 

They  were  silent  for  a  while,  and  before  they  spoke  again, 
the  train  backed  into  the  station,  and  they  passed  through 
the  barriers  so  that  Marsh  could  secure  his  seat. 

"Well,  what  do  you  propose  to  do  for  Ireland?"  Marsh 
asked  again,  when  he  had  entered  his  carriage. 

"The  best  I  can,  I  suppose.     I  don't  know  yet!  ..." 

Marsh  turned  quickly  to  Henry  and  put  his  hand  on  his 
shoulder.  "Henry,"  he  said,  "I  hope  you  don't  mind  .  .  . 
I  know  about  Sheila  Morgan  and  you !  .  .  . " 

"You  know?  .  .  ." 

"Yes.  I'm  sorry  about  that.  I  don't  think  you  should 
let  it  upset  you ! ' ' 

Henry  did  not  reply  for  a  few  moments,  but  sat  still 
staring  in  front  of  him.  In  a  sub-conscious  way,  he  was 
wondering  why  it  was  that  the  carriages  were  not 
cleaner.  .  .  . 

"I'm  frightfully  miserable,  John,"  he  said  at  last. 

"But  why,  Henry?" 

' '  Oh,  because  of  everything.  I  don 't  know.  I  'm  a  fool, 
I  suppose ! ' ' 

"You're  not  going  to  pieces  just  because  you've  fallen 


136  CHANGING  WINDS 

in  love  with  a  girl  and  it's  turned  out  wrong?  My  dear 
Henry,  that's  a  poor  sort  of  a  spirit!" 

"I  know  it  is,  but  I'm  a  sloppy  fellow!  ..." 

"This  affair  with  Sheila  Morgan  is  all  the  more  reason 
why  you  should  think  of  something  big  to  do.  I  wish  you 
were  coming  to  Dublin  with  me  now.  Dublin's  very  beau- 
tiful in  the  summer,  and  we  could  go  up  into  the  mountains 
and  talk  about  things." 

'*0h,  well,  we  shall  meet  in  Dublin  fairly  soon,"  Henry 
replied,  smiling  at  Marsh.  It  had  been  settled  that  he  was 
to  enter  Trinity  a  little  earlier  than  his  father  had  previ- 
ously planned. 

"Yes,  that's  true!" 

The  hour  at  which  the  train  was  due  to  depart  came, 
and  Henry  got  out  of  the  carriage  and  stood  on  the  plat- 
form while  Marsh,  his  head  thrust  through  the  window, 
talked  to  him. 

"You  might  write  to  me,"  he  said.  "We  ought  not  to 
drift  away  from  each  other,  Henry!  ..." 

' '  We  won 't  do  that.    We  '11  see  each  other  in  Dublin. ' ' 

"Yes,  of  course.  You  must  meet  Galway  when  you  come 
back.  He's  a  schoolmaster  and  a  barrister  and  a  poet 
and  heaven  knows  what  not.  He 's  a  splendid  fellow.  Per- 
haps he'll  persuade  you  to  take  more  interest  in  Irish 
things!" 

"Perhaps!" 

The  guard  blew  his  whistle,  and  the  train  began  to  move 
out  of  the  station. 

"Don't  get  too  English,  Henry!"  Marsh  shouted,  wav- 
ing his  hand  in  farewell. 

Henry  smiled  at  him,  but  did  not  answer. 

"Good-bye!"  Marsh  called  to  him. 

'  *  Good-bye ! ' '  Henry  answered. 

The  train  swung  round  a  bend  and  disappeared  on  its 
way  south,  and  Henry,  strangely  desolate,  turned  and 
walked  away  from  the  station. 


CHANGING  WINDS  187 


In  the  excitement  of  leaving  Ballymartin  and  sight- 
seeing in  the  shipyard,  he  had  ahnost  forgotten  Sheila  Mor- 
gan, but  now,  his  mind  stimulated  by  his  talk  with  Marsh 
and  his  spirit  depressed  by  his  loneliness,  his  thoughts  re- 
turned to  her,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  detested  her. 
She  had  insulted  him,  struck  him,  humiliated  and  shamed 
him.  When  he  remembered  that  he  had  told  her  of  his 
love  for  her  and  had  asked  her  to  marry  him,  and  had 
been  told  in  reply  that  she  wanted  a  man,  not  a  coward, 
he  felt  that  he  could  not  bear  to  return  to  Ireland  again. 
His  mood  was  mingled  misery  and  gladness.  At  Bovey- 
hayne,  thank  heaven,  he  would  be  free  of  Sheila  and  prob- 
ably he  would  never  think  of  her  again.  Gilbert  and  Ni- 
nian  would  fill  his  mind,  and  of  course  there  would  be  JMrs. 
Graham  and  Mary.  Mary !  It  was  strange  that  he  should 
have  let  Mary  slip  out  of  his  thoughts  and  let  Sheila  slip 
into  them.  He  had  actually  proposed  to  Mary  and  she 
had  accepted  him,  and  then  he  had  left  her  and  forgotten 
her  because  of  Sheila.  He  remembered  that  he  had  not 
replied  to  the  letter  she  had  written  to  him  before  John 
Marsh  came  to  Ballymartin.  He  had  intended  to  write, 
but  somehow  he  had  not  done  so  .  .  .  and  then  Sheila  came, 
and  it  was  impossible  to  write  to  her.  He  wondered  what 
he  should  say  to  her  when  they  met.  "Would  she  come  to 
Whitcombe  station  to  meet  him?  What  was  he  to  say  to 
her?  .  .  . 

He  had  treated  her  shabbily.  Of  course,  she  was  only  a 
kid,  as  Ninian  himself  would  say,  but  then  he  had  made 
love  to  her,  and  anyhow  she  would  be  less  of  a  kid  now  than 
she  was  when  he  last  saw  her.  .  .  .  He  got  tired  of  walking 
about  the  streets,  and  he  made  his  way  to  the  quays  and 
passed  across  the  gangway  on  to  the  deck  of  the  steamer. 
A  cool  air  was  blowing  up  the  Lagan  from  the  Lough,  and 
when  he  leaned  over  the  side  of  the  ship  he  could  see  the 
dark  skeleton  shape  of  the  shipyard.    His  thoughts  were 


138  CHANGING  WINDS 

extraordinarily  confused,  rambling  about  his  father  and 
Sheila  Morgan  and  John  Marsh  and  Mary  Graham  and 
Tom  Arthurs  and  Ireland  and  ships  and  England  and  Gil- 
bert Farlow  and  Ninian  and  Roger.  .  .  . 

"I  ought  never  to  have  thought  of  any  one  but  IMary,"  he 
said  to  himself  at  last.  "I  really  love  her.  I  was  only 
.  .  .  only  passing  the  time  with  Sheila ! '  * 

"Well,  thank  God  I'll  soon  be  in  Devonshire,"  he  went 
on,  "and  out  of  all  this.  If  only  my  Trinity  time  were 
over,  and  I  were  settled  in  London  with  Gilbert  and  the 
others,  I'd  be  happy  again!"  He  thought  of  John  Marsh, 
and  as  he  leant  over  the  side  of  the  boat,  looking  down  on 
the  dark  water  flowing  beneath  him,  he  seemed  to  see 
Marsh's  eager  face,  framed  in  the  window  of  the  railway 
carriage.  He  almost  heard  Marsh  saying  again,  "Well, 
what  do  you  propose  to  do  for  Ireland?  ..." 

"Oh,  damn  Ireland,"  he  said  out  loud. 

He  walked  away  from  the  place  where  he  had  imagined 
he  had  seen  Marsh's  face  peering  at  him  out  of  the  water, 
and  as  he  walked  along  the  deck,  he  could  hear  the  noise 
of  hammering  in  the  shipyard  made  by  the  men  on  the 
night-shift.  Tom  Arthurs 's  brain  was  still  working,  though 
Tom  Arthurs  was  now  at  home. 

"That's  real  work,"  Henry  murmured  to  himself,  "and 
a  lot  better  than  gabbling  about  Ireland's  soul  as  if  it 
were  the  only  soul  in  the  world!  Poor  old  John!  I  dis- 
appoint him  horribly.  ..."  He  was  standing  in  the  bows 
of  the  boat,  looking  towards  the  Lough.  "I  wonder,"  he 
said  to  himself,  "whether  Mary  11  be  at  Whitcombe  sta- 
tion!" 


3 

The  peculiar  sense  of  isolation  which  overwhelms  an 
Irishman  when  he  is  in  England,  fell  upon  Henry  the 
moment  he  climbed  into  the  carriage  at  Lime  Street  sta- 
tion.   None  of  the  passengers  in  his  compartment  spoke  to 


CHANGING  WINDS  189 

each  other,  whereas  in  Ireland,  every  member  of  the  com- 
pany would  have  been  talking  like  familiars  in  a  few  min- 
utes. About  an  hour  after  the  train  had  left  Liverpool, 
some  one  leant  across  to  the  passenger  facing  him  and 
asked  for  a  match,  and  a  box  of  matches  was  passed  to  him 
without  a  word  from  the  man  who  owned  them. 
* '  Thanks ! ' '  said  the  passenger  who  had  borrowed  the  box, 
as  he  returned  it.  No  more  was  said  by  any  one  for  half 
an  hour,  and  then  the  man  opposite  to  Henry  stretched 
himself  and  said,  "We're  getting  along!"  and  turned  and 
laid  his  head  against  the  window  and  went  to  sleep. 

' '  We  are  different ! ' '  Henry  thought  to  himself.  *  *  We  're 
certainly  different  .  .  .  only  I  wonder  does  the  difference 
matter  much!" 

He  tried  to  make  conversation  with  his  neighbour,  but 
was  unsuccessful,  for  his  neighbour  replied  only  in  mono- 
syllables, and  sometimes  did  not  even  articulate  at  all,  con- 
tenting himself  with  a  grunt.  .  .  . 

"Well,  why  should  he  talk  to  me?"  Henry  thought  to 
himself.  "He  isn't  interested  in  me  or  my  opinions,  and 
perhaps  he  wants  to  read  or  think !  .  .  . " 

Marsh  would  have  denied  that  the  man  wanted  to  think. 
He  would  have  denied  that  the  man  had  the  capacity  to 
think  at  all.  Henry  remembered  how  Marsh  had  general- 
ised about  the  English.  ' '  They  live  on  their  instincts, ' '  he 
had  said.  * '  They  never  live  on  their  minds ! ' '  and  he  had 
quoted  from  an  article  in  an  English  newspaper  in  which 
the  writer  had  lamented  over  the  decline  and  fall  of  in- 
tellect among  his  countrymen.  The  writer  declared  that 
no  one  would  pay  to  see  a  play  that  made  a  greater  demand 
upon  the  mind  than  is  made  in  a  musical  comedy,  and  that 
even  this  slight  demand  was  proving  to  be  more  than 
many  people  could  bear :  the  picture  palace  was  destroying 
even  the  musical  comedy. 

"But  are  we  any  better  than  that?"  Henry  had  asked 
innocently,  and  Marsh,  indignant,  had  declared  that  the 
Irish  were  immeasurably  better  than  that. 


140  CHANGING  WINDS 

"But  are  we?"  Henry  asked  himself  as  the  train  swiftly 
moved  towards  London. 

And  through  his  mind  there  raced  a  long  procession  of 
questions  for  which  he  could  not  find  answers.  His  mind 
was  an  active,  searching  mind,  but  it  was  immature,  and 
there  were  great  gaps  in  it  that  could  only  be  filled  after  a 
long  time  and  much  experience.  He  had  not  the  knowl- 
edge which  would  enable  him  to  combat  the  opinions  of 
Marsh,  but  some  instinct  in  him  caused  him  to  believe  that 
Marsh's  views  of  England  and  Ireland  were  largely  preju- 
diced views.  "I  don't  feel  any  less  friendly  to  Gilbert 
and  Ninian  and  Roger  than  I  do  to  John  IMarsh  or  any 
other  Irishman,  and  I  don't  feel  that  John  understands 
me  better  than  they  do!"  That  was  the  pivot  on  which 
all  his  opinions  turned.  He  could  only  argue  from  his 
experience,  and  his  experience  was  that  this  fundamental 
antagonism  between  the  Irish  and  the  English,  on  which 
John  Marsh  insisted,  did  not  exist.  When  Marsh  declared 
passionately  that  he  did  not  wish  to  see  Ireland  made  into 
a  place  like  Lancashire,  he  was  only  stating  something  that 
many  Englishmen  said  with  equal  passion  about  the  unin- 
dustrialised  parts  of  England.  Gilbert  Farlow  denounced 
mill-owners  with  greater  fury  than  Mr.  Quinn  denounced 
them.  ...  It  seemed  to  Henry  that  he  could  name  an 
English  equivalent  for  every  Irish  friend  he  had. 

"There  are  differences,  of  course,"  he  said  to  himself, 
remembering  the  silent  company  of  passengers  who  shared 
his  compartment,  "but  they  don't  matter  very  much!" 

"I  wish,"  he  went  on,  "John  Marsh  weren't  so  bitter 
against  the  English.  Lots  of  them  would  like  him  if  he'd 
only  let  them ! ' ' 

He  looked  out  of  the  window  at  the  wide  fields  and  herds 
of  cattle  and  comfortable  farmhouses,  built  by  men  whose 
lives  were  more  or  less  secure,  and  .  .  .  "Of  course!"  he 
exclaimed  in  his  mind.  "That's  the  secret  of  the  whole 
thing !  When  our  people  have  had  security  for  life  as  long 
as  these  people  have  had  it,  their  houses  will  be  as  good  as 


CHANGING  WINDS  141 

these  are,  and  their  farms  as  rich  and  clean  and  com- 
fortable!" 

One  had  only  to  remember  the  history  of  Ireland  to 
realise  that  many  of  the  differences  between  the  English 
and  the  Irish  were  no  more  than  the  differences  between 
the  hunter  and  the  hunted,  the  persecutor  and  the  perse- 
cuted. How  could  the  Irish  help  having  a  lower  standard 
of  life  than  the  English  when  their  lives  had  been  so  dis- 
rupted and  disturbed  that  it  was  difficult  for  them  to  have 
a  standard  of  life  at  all  ?  Now,  when  the  disturbance  was 
over  and  security  of  life  had  been  obtained  (after  what 
misery  and  bitterness  and  cruel  lack  of  common  compre- 
hension!) the  Irish  would  soon  set  up  a  level  of  life  that 
might  ultimately  be  higher  than  that  of  the  English. 

"Of  course,"  said  Henry,  remembering  something  that 
his  father  had  said,  "there'll  be  a  Greedy  Interval!" 

The  Greedy  Interval,  the  first  period  of  prosperity  in 
Ireland  when  the  peasants,  coming  suddenly  from  inse- 
curity and  poverty  to  safety  and  well-being,  would  claw  at 
money  like  hungry  beasts  clawing  at  food,  had  been  the 
subject  of  many  arguments  between  Mr.  Quinn  and  John 
Marsh,  Mr.  Quinn  maintaining  that  greed  was  the  prin- 
cipal characteristic  of  a  peasant  nation,  inherent  in  it,  in- 
separable from  it. 

"Look  at  the  French,"  he  had  said  on  one  occasion. 
"By  God,  they  buried  their  food  in  their  back-gardens 
rather  than  let  their  hungry  soldiers  have  it  in  the  Franco- 
German  War!  Would  an  aristocrat  have  done  that,  John 
Marsh?  They  saw  their  own  countrymen  who  had  been 
fighting  for  them,  starving,  and  they  let  them  starve !  .  .  ." 

It  was  the  same  everywhere.  "I  never  pass  a  patch  of 
allotments,"  he  said,  "without  thinkin'  that  their  mean, 
ugly,  little  look  is  just  like  a  peasant's  mind,  an'  begod  I'm 
glad  when  I'm  past  them  an'  can  see  wide  lands  again!" 
Peasants  were  greedy,  narrow,  unimaginative,  lacking  in 
public  spirit.  In  France,  in  Belgium,  in  Holland  and  Rus- 
sia, in  all  of  which  countries  Mr.  Quinn  had  travelled 


142  CHANGING  WINDS 

much,  there  was  a  peasant  spirit  powerfully  manifested, 
and  almost  invariably  that  manifestation  was  shown  in  a 
mean  manner. 

"That's  what  your  wonderful  Land  Laws  are  going  to 
do  for  Ireland!"  Mr.  Quinn  had  exclaimed  scornfully. 
**  We're  to  be  thrown  out  of  our  land,  an'  louts  like  Tom 
McCrum  are  to  be  put  in  our  place!  ..." 

Henry  had  sympathised  with  his  father  then,  but  he  felt 
that  the  best  of  the  argument  was  with  John  Marsh  who 
had  replied  that  the  Irish  landlords  would  never  have  been 
dispossessed  of  their  land,  if  they  had  been  worthy  of  it. 
"If  they'd  thought  as  much  about  their  responsibilities  as 
they  thought  about  their  rights,  they'd  still  have  their 
rights!"  he  said. 

"I  suppose  that's  so,"  Henry  said  to  himself,  picking 
up  a  paper  that  he  had  bought  in  Liverpool  and  begin- 
ning to  read.    "I  must  talk  to  Gilbert  about  it!" 


Ninian  and  Gilbert  met  him  at  Whitcombe  station.  As 
he  stood  on  the  little  platform  of  the  carriage,  he  could  see 
that  Mary  was  not  with  them,  and  he  felt  disappointed. 
She  might  have  come,  too !  .  .  . 

"Here  he  is,"  he  heard  Gilbert  shout  to  Ninian  as  the 
train  drew  up.    "Hilloa,  Quinny!" 

"Hilloa,  Gilbert!" 

"Hop  out  quickly,  will  you!" 

He  hopped  out  as  quickly  as  he  could  and  said  "Hilloa!" 
to  Ninian,  who  said  "Hilloa!"  and  slapped  his  back  and 
called  him  an  old  rotter. 

"Widger'll  take  your  luggage,"  Gilbert  said,  taking  con- 
trol of  their  movements  as  he  always  did.  "Hang  on  to 
this,  Widger,"  he  added,  taking  a  handbag  from  Henry 
and  throwing  it  into  Widger 's  arms.  "Show  him  the  rest 
of  your  stuff,  Quinny,  and  let's  hook  off.  We're  going  to 
walk  to  Boveyhayne.    You'll  need  a  stretch  after  sitting 


CHANGING  WINDS  143 

all  that  time,  and  Ninian's  getting  disgustingly  obese,  so 
we  make  him  run  up  and  down  the  road  over  the  cliff  three 
times  so's  to  thin  him  down!  ..." 

"Funny  ass!"  said  Ninian. 

"Mrs.  Graham  wanted  Mary  to  come  with  us,  but  we 
wouldn't  let  her.  We're  tired  of  females,  Ninian  and  I, 
and  Mary 's  very  f  emaley  at  present.  She 's  started  to  read 
poetry!  .  .  ." 

"Out  loud!"  Ninian  growled.  "I'm  sick  of  people  who 
read  out  loud  to  me.  When  Mary's  not  spouting  stuff 
about  'love'  and  'dove'  and  'heaven  above'  and  that  sort  of 
rot,  Gilbert's  reading  his  damn  play  to  me!" 

"I'll  read  it  to  you,  Quinny!"  Gilbert  said,  linking  his 
arm  in  Henry's. 

They  had  left  the  station,  and  were  now  walking  along 
the  unfinished  road  above  the  shingle.  There  was  a  heat 
haze  hanging  over  the  smooth  blue  sea,  so  that  sky  and 
water  merged  into  each  other  imperceptibly.  In  front  of 
them,  they  could  see  the  white  cliffs  of  Boveyhayne  shining 
in  the  descending  sun.  There  were  great  stalks  of  char- 
lock, standing  out  of  the  grass  on  the  face  of  the  cliffs, 
giving  them  a  golden  head. 

"If  Marley's  on  Whitcombe  beach,  we'll  row  over  to 
Boveyhayne,"  said  Ninian.  "You'd  like  to  get  on  to  the 
sea,  wouldn't  you,  Quinny?" 

Henry  nodded  his  head. 

"No,"  said  Gilbert,  "we  won't.  We'll  sit  here  for  a 
while,  and  I'll  read  my  play  to  Quinny.  I  carry  it  about 
with  me,  Quinny,  so  that  I  can  read  it  to  Ninian  whenever 
his  spirits  are  low ! ' ' 

*  *  I  never  saw  such  a  chap ! ' '  Ninian  mumbled. 

"This  great,  hairy,  beefy  fellow,"  Gilbert  went  on,  seiz- 
ing hold  of  Ninian's  arm  with  his  disengaged  hand,  "does 
not  love  literature!  ..." 

Ninian  broke  free  from  Gilbert's  grip.  "Marley  is  on 
the  beach,"  he  said,  and  ran  ahead  to  engage  the  boat. 

"Well,  Quinny !"  said  Gilbert,  when  Ninian  had  gone. 


144  CHANGING  WINDS 

"  Well,  Gilbert!"  Henry  replied. 

"How's  Ireland?     Still  making  an  ass  of  itself?" 

Henry  made  no  answer  to  Gilbert's  question  because  he 
knew  that  an  answer  was  not  expected.  Had  any  one  else 
spoken  in  that  fashion  to  him,  any  other  Englishman,  he 
would  probably  have  angered  instantly,  but  Gilbert  was 
different  from  all  other  people  in  Henry's  eyes,  and  was 
privileged  to  say  whatever  he  pleased. 

*  *  Gilbert, ' '  he  said,  ' '  I  want  to  have  a  long  jaw  with  you 
about  something!  ..." 

The  English  way  of  speaking  came  naturally  to  him, 
and  he  said  "a  long  jaw  about  something"  as  easily  as  if 
he  had  never  been  outside  an  English  public  school. 

"What?"  Gilbert  said. 

'  *  Oh,  everything.    Ireland  and  things  1 ' ' 

"All  right,  my  son!" 

"You  see!  .  .  ." 

"Wait  though,"  said  Gilbert,  "until  we  catch  up  with 
Ninian.  He  ought  to  hear  it,  too.  He  has  a  wise  old 
noddle,  Ninian,  although  he 's  such  a  fat  'un.  .  .  .  My  God, 
Quinny,  isn't  he  getting  big?  If  he  piles  up  any  more 
muscle,  he'll  have  to  go  to  Trinity  Hall  and  join  the  beefy 
brutes  and  get  drunk  and  all  that  kind  of  manly  thing!" 
They  came  up  with  Ninian  as  he  spoke.  "Won't  you, 
Ninian?" 

"Won't  I  what?"  Ninian  replied. 

'  *  Have  to  go  to  Trinity  Hall  if  you  go  on  being  a  beefy 
Briton.     Hilloa,  Marley!" 

"Good-evenin',  sir!"  said  old  Marley. 

They  got  into  the  boat,  and  Ninian  rowed  them  round  the 
white  cliff  to  Boveyhayne  beach,  where  they  left  the  boat 
and  walked  up  the  village  street  to  the  lane  that  led  to 
Boveyhayne  Manor. 

"Henry  wants  to  talk  about  the  world,  Ninian!"  said 
Gilbert  as  they  left  the  beach.  "We'd  better  have  a  good 
old  gabble  after  dinner  to-night,  hadn  't  we  ? " 

"It  doesn't  matter  what  I  say,"  said  Ninian,  "you'll 


CHANGING  WINDS  145 

gabble  anyhow.    Anything  to  keep  him  from  reading  his 
blooming  play  to  me ! "  he  added,  turning  to  Henry. 


He  had  a  sense  of  disappointment  when  he  met  Mary. 
In  his  reaction  from  Sheila  Morgan,  he  had  imagined  Mary 
coming  to  greet  him  with  something  of  the  alert  youth- 
fulness  with  which  she  had  met  him  when  he  first  visited 
Boveyhayne,  but  when  she  came  into  the  hall,  a  book  in 
her  hand,  he  felt  that  there  was  some  stiffness  in  her  man- 
ner, a  self-consciousness  which  had  not  been  there  before. 

"How  do  you  do?"  she  said,  offering  her  hand  to  him 
like  any  well-bred  girl. 

She  did  not  call  him  *'Quinny"  or  show  in  her  manner 
or  speech  that  he  was  particularly  welcome  to  her. 

"I  suppose,"  he  thought  to  himself,  "she's  cross  because 
I  didn't  answer  her  letter!" 

He  resolved  that  he  would  bring  her  back  to  her  old 
friendliness.  .  .  . 

"I  expect  you're  tired,"  she  said.  "We'll  have  tea  in 
a  minute  or  two.  Mother's  lying  down.  She's  not  very 
well!" 

She  would  have  said  as  much  to  a  casual  acquaintance, 
Henry  thought. 

* '  Not  well ! "  he  heard  Ninian  saying.  *  *  What 's  the  mat- 
ter with  her?" 

* '  She 's  tired.  I  think  she 's  got  a  headache.  There  was 
a  letter  from  Uncle  Peter ! ' '  Mary  answered,  and  her  tone 
indicated  that  the  letter  from  Uncle  Peter  accounted  for 
everything. 

"Oh!"  said  Ninian,  scowling  and  turning  away. 

They  went  into  the  drawing-room  to  tea,  and  Henry  had 
a  sense  of  intruding  on  family  affairs,  mingled  with  his 
disappointment  because  Mary  was  not  as  he  had  expected 
her  to  be.  It  might  be,  of  course,  that  the  letter  from 
Uncle  Peter  had  affected  JNIary  almost  as  much  as  it  seemed 


146  CHANGING  WINDS 

to  have  affected  Mrs.  Graham,  and  that  presently  she  would 
be  as  natural  as  she  had  been  that  other  time  .  .  .  but 
then  he  remembered  that  Gilbert  had  said  that  she  was 
"being  very  femaley  at  present."  She  poured  out  tea  for 
them  as  if  she  were  a  new  governess,  and  she  reproved 
Ninian  once  for  saying  "Damn!"  when  he  dropped  his 
bread  and  butter.  .  .  . 

"Mary's  turned  pi!"  said  Ninian. 

She  frowned  at  him  and  told  him  not  to  be  silly. 

"She  calls  the  Communion  Service  the  Eucharist,  and 
crosses  herself  and  flops  and  bows !  .  .  . " 

"You're  very  absurd,  Ninian!"  she  said. 

Almost  unconsciously,  he  began  to  compare  her  to  Sheila 
Morgan.  He  remembered  the  free,  natural  ways  of  Sheila, 
and  liked  them  better  than  these  new,  mannered  ways  of 
Mary.  How  could  any  one  prefer  this  stiltedness  to  that 
ease,  this  self-consciousness  to  that  state  of  being  unaware 
of  self?  ...  In  Belfast,  when  he  had  left  John  Marsh,  and 
in  his  loneliness  had  thought  of  the  way  Sheila  had  hu- 
miliated him,  he  had  had  a  sharp  sense  of  revulsion  from 
her,  a  loathing  for  her,  a  desire  never  to  see  her  again ;  but 
now,  sitting  here  looking  at  Mary  and  oppressed  by  her 
youngladyishness,  his  longing  for  Sheila  came  back  to  him 
with  greater  strength,  and  he  resolved  that  he  would  write 
to  her  that  night  and  beg  her  to  forgive  him  for  his  cow- 
ardice and  let  him  be  her  sweetheart  again.  .  .  . 

"Will  you  have  some  more  tea?"  Mary  was  saying  to 
him,  and  he  started  at  the  sound  of  her  voice. 

"Oh,  thanks!"  he  said,  passing  his  cup  to  her. 

"Thinking,  Quinny?"  Gilbert  exclaimed,  reaching  for  a 
bun. 

"Eh?  Oh,  yes!  I  was  thinking!"  he  answered. 
"What  time  does  the  evening  post  go  out?"  he  said  to 
Ninian. 

"Six-twenty-five,"  Ninian  answered. 

"Thanks.    I  just  want  to  write  to  Ireland!  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  14*7 

"It'll  get  there  just  as  soon  if  you  post  it  to-morrow," 
said  Gilbert. 

Mary  left  them.  ''I'm  going  up  to  mother,"  she  said, 
as  she  got  up  from  the  tea  table.  ' '  She 's  awfully  sorry  she 
couldn't  be  down  to  welcome  you,"  she  added  to  Henry 
who  had  moved  to  open  the  door  for  her. 

"I  hope  she'll  soon  be  better,"  he  answered. 

When  she  had  gone,  Ninian  got  up  and  cursed  lustily. 

''Damn  and  blast  him,"  he  said. 

They  did  not  speak.  They  knew  that  Ninian 's  anger 
had  some  relation  to  Mrs.  Graham's  headache  and  the 
letter  from  Uncle  Peter,  and  they  felt  that  it  was  not 
their  business  to  speak,  even  though  Ninian  had  drawn 
them  into  the  affair. 

*'I'm  sorry,"  said  Ninian,  sitting  down  again.  "I 
ought  not  to  have  broken  out  like  that  before  you  chaps,  but 
I  couldn't  help  it." 

Henry  coughed  as  if  he  were  clearing  his  throat,  but 
he  did  not  speak,  and  Gilbert  sat  still  and  gazed  at  the  toe 
of  his  shoe. 

* '  He  always  upsets  mother,  damn  him ! ' '  Ninian  looked 
up  at  them.  "My  Uncle  Peter  married  a  girl  in  a  con- 
fectioner's shop  at  Cambridge.  He's  that  kind  of  ass! 
He  never  writes  to  mother  except  when  he's  in  a  mess,  and 
he  always  expects  her  to  get  him  out  of  it.  I  can't  stand 
a  man  who  does  that  sort  of  thing.  She's  an  awful  bitch, 
too  ...  his  wife!  We  had  them  here  once!  .  .  .  My 
God!" 

Ninian  lay  back  in  his  seat  and  remained  silent  for  a 
while  as  if  he  were  contemplating  in  his  mind  the  picture 
of  Uncle  Peter  and  his  wife  on  that  awful  visit  to  Bovey- 
hayne.    They  waited  for  him  to  continue. 

"I  used  to  feel  ashamed  to  go  into  the  village,"  he  said 
at  last.  "The  way  she  talked  to  the  fishermen — one  minute 
snubbing  them,  and  the  next,  talking  to  them  as  if  she 
were  a  servant-girl.     They  didn't  like  it.    Jim  Rattenbury 


148  CHANGING  WINDS 

hated  it,  I  know.  She  wasn't  one  of  us  and  she  wasn't  one 
of  them.  A  damned  in-between,  that's  what  she  was.  And 
Uncle  Peter  used  to  get  drunk!  ...  I'm  awfully  sorry, 
you  chaps,  I  oughtn  't  to  be  boring  you  like  this ! ' ' 

"That's  all  right,"  said  Gilbert. 

"I  was  jolly  glad  when  they  went,"  Ninian  went  on. 
"Jolly  glad !  Poor  mother  had  a  hell  of  a  time  while  they 
were  here ! ' ' 

"I  suppose  so,"  Henry  murmured,  hardly  knowing  what 
to  say. 

"I  can't  understand  a  man  marrying  a  woman  like 
that,"  Ninian  said.  "I  mean,  I  can  understand  a  fellow 
ragging  about  with  a  girl,  but  I  can't  understand  him  mar- 
rying her  and  .  .  .  and  upsetting  things!" 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  Henry's  tongue  to  say  something 
about  Ninian 's  belief  in  democracy,  for  he  remembered 
that  Gilbert,  in  one  of  his  letters,  had  declared  that  Ninian 
had  become  a  I'm-as-good-as-you-and-a-damn-sight-better- 
politieian,  but  he  did  not  say  it. 

' '  The  girl  isn  't  happy.  Anybody  can  see  she  isn  't  happy, 
and  Uncle  Peter  isn't  happy,  and  between  them  they  make 
us  damn  miserable.  That  kind  of  marriage  is  bound  to 
fail,  /  think.  People  ought  to  marry  in  their  own 
class!  .  .  ." 

"Unless  they're  big  enough  to  climb  out  of  it,"  said 
Gilbert. 

"-S/ie  isn't!" 

It  came  to  Henry  suddenly  that  he  was  proposing  to  do 
what  Ninian 's  Uncle  Peter  had  done:  marry  a  girl  who 
was  not  of  his  class.  He  listened  to  Ninian  and  Gilbert  as 
they  talked  of  this  intimate  mingling  of  classes,  and  won- 
dered what  they  would  say  if  they  knew  of  Sheila.  Gil- 
bert and  Ninian  were  agreed  that  on  the  whole  it  was 
foolish  for  a  man  to  marry  that  kind  of  girl.  "It  doesn't 
work, ' '  said  Gilbert,  and  he  told  a  story  of  a  man  whom  his 
father  had  known,  an  officer  in  the  Indian  army  who  de- 


CHANGING  WINDS  149 

veloped  communist  beliefs  when  he  retired  and  had  mar- 
ried his  cook.     "It's  a  ghastly  failure,"  said  Gilbert. 

''I'm  all  for  equality,"  Ninian  said,  ''but  it's  silly  to 
think  that  we're  always  equal  now.    We're  not!  ..." 

"And  never  will  be,"  Gilbert  interjected. 

"I  don't  agree  with  you,  Gilbert.  I  think  that  things 
like  habits  and  manners  can  be  fairly  equalised!  ..." 

"Minds  can't!" 

"No,  of  course  not,  but  decent  behaviour  can,  and  it's 
silly  to  start  mingling  classes  until  you've  done  that. 
You  rub  each  other  the  wrong  way  over  little  things  that 
don't  really  matter,  but  that  irritate  like  blazes.  I've 
talked  about  it  with  mother.  She  used  to  think  I  was  the 
sort  of  chap  who'd  do  what  Uncle  Peter  did.  Uncle  Peter 
frightened  me  off  that  kind  of  thing!" 

It  was  absurd,  Henry  thought,  to  think  that  all  women 
were  like  Uncle  Peter's  wife.  Sheila  was  not  that  sort  of 
girl  at  all.     She  would  not  make  a  man  feel  ashamed !  .  .  . 

He  broke  off  in  the  middle  of  his  thoughts  to  listen  to 
Gilbert  who  was  enunciating  a  doctrine  that  was  new  to 
Henry. 

' '  There  are  aristocrats  and  there  are  plebs, ' '  said  Gilbert, 
"and  they  won't  mingle.  That's  all  about  it.  I  believe 
that  the  majority  of  the  working  people  are  different  from 
us,  not  only  in  their  habits  .  .  .  that's  nothing  .  .  .  just 
the  veneer  .  .  .  but  in  their  nature.  We've  been  achieved 
somehow  .  .  .  evolution  and  that  sort  of  thing  ,  .  .  because 
they  needed  people  to  look  after  them  and  direct  them  and 
control  them.  We  're  as  different  from  working  people  as 
a  race-horse  is  from  a  cart-horse.  Things  that  are  quite 
natural  to  us  are  simply  finicky  fussy  things  to  them.  I 
wish  to  God  talking  like  this  didn't  make  a  fellow  feel  like 
a  prig!  ..." 

He  broke  off  almost  angrily. 

"Let's  go  out,"  he  said.     "I  want  to  smoke!" 

"But  it's  true  all  the  same,"  he  went  on  when  they  got 


150  CHANGING  WINDS 

outside,  almost  as  if  he  had  not  broken  his  speech. 
"Whether  we  tried  for  it  or  not,  we've  got  people  sepa- 
rated into  groups,  and  we'll  never  get  them  out  of  them. 
Some  of  us  are  servants  and  some  ot  us  are  bosses,  and 
we've  developed  natures  like  that,  and  we  can't  get  away 
from  them!"  Henry  reminded  them  of  men  who  had 
climbed  from  low  positions  to  high  positions.  "They're 
the  accidents,"  Gilbert  went  on.  "They  prove  nothing, 
and  I'm  certain  that  if  you  could  go  back  into  their  an- 
cestry, you'd  find  they  sprang  from  people  like  us,  who 
had  somehow  slithered  down  until  the  breed  told  and  a 
turn  up  was  taken!  .  .  ." 

They  argued  round  and  round  the  subject,  admitting 
here,  denying  there.  .  .  . 

"Anyhow,"  Gilbert  ended,  "it  is  true  that  a  man  who 
marries  a  village  girl  makes  a  mistake,  isn't  it?" 

"Not  always,"  Henry  replied. 

"Nearly  always,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Uncle  Peter  made  a  mistake  anyhow,"  Ninian  said. 


6 

He  went  to  his  room,  pleading  that  he  was  tired,  to 
write  his  letter  to  Sheila  before  dinner.  As  he  was  going 
upstairs,  Mary  began  to  descend,  and  he  saw  that  her  look 
was  brighter. 

"Go  back,"  she  called  to  him,  waving  her  hand  as  if  to 
thrust  him  down  the  stairs  again.  "It's  unlucky  to  pass 
people  on  the  stairs.    Don't  you  know  that?" 

He  descended  again  as  she  bade  him,  laughing  as  he  did 
so,  and  waited  until  she  had  come  down. 

"  Mother's  much  better  now,"  she  said  when  she  had 
reached  his  side.     *  *  She 's  coming  down  to  dinner. ' ' 

"I'm  awfully  glad,"  he  replied.  He  hesitated  for  a 
second  or  two,  standing  with  one  foot  on  the  last  step  of 
the  stairs.    "I  say,  Mary,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  Quinny!"  she  answered,  turning  to  him. 


CHANGING  WINDS  151 

So  she  had  not  forgotten  that  she  had  called  him  by  his 
nick-name. 

"I  say,  Mary,"  he  said  again,  still  undecided  as  to 
whether  he  should  speak  his  mind  or  not. 

"Yes?"  she  repeated. 

He  went  up  a  step  or  two  of  the  stairs.  "Oh,  I  don't 
know,"  he  exclaimed.  "I  only  wanted  to  say  how  nice 
it  is  to  be  here  again ! ' ' 

"Oh,  yes!"  Mary  said,  and  he  imagined  that  her  tone 
was  one  of  disappointment. 

"I'll  be  down  presently,"  he  went  on,  and  then  he  ran 
up  the  stairs  to  his  room. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  closed  his 
door.    "  I  'm  damned  if  I  know ! ' ' 

He  sat  down  at  the  writing-table  and  spread  a  sheet  of 
notepaper  in  front  of  him.  "I  wish  I  knew!  .  .  ."  he 
murmured,  and  he  wrote  down  the  date.  "Mary  is  awfully 
nice,  and  I  like  her  of  course,  but  Sheila!  ..." 

He  put  the  pen  down  again  and  sat  back  in  his  chair 
and  stared  out  of  the  window.  Out  in  the  farmyard,  he 
could  hear  the  men  bedding  the  horses,  and  there  was  a 
clatter  of  cans  from  the  dairy  where  the  women  were 
turning  the  milk  into  cream.  He  could  hear  a  horse  whin- 
nying in  its  stall  .  .  .  and  as  he  listened  he  seemed  to  see 
Sheila,  as  he  had  seen  her  on  her  uncle's  farm  before  he 
had  failed  in  courage,  standing  outside  the  byre  with  a 
crock  in  her  hands  and  a  queer,  teasing  look  in  her  eyes. 
"You're  the  quare  wee  fella!"  she  was  saying,  and  then, 
"I  like  you  quaren  well!  ..." 

He  seized  the  pen  again  and  began  to  write. 

7 

He  had  almost  finished  the  letter  when  Gilbert  knocked 
on  his  door  and  shouted,  "Can  I  come  in,  Quinny?" 

He  put  the  letter  under  the  blotting  paper,  and  called, 
"Yes,  Gilbert!"  in  reply. 


162  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Aren't  you  ready  yet?"  Gil^^ert  asked. 

"No,  not  yet,  but  I  won't  be  long  changing!" 

"Righto!"  said  Gilbert,  going  to  the  other  window  and 
looking  across  the  fields.  "Rum  go  about  Ninian's  uncle, 
isn't  it?"  he  said,  playing  with  the  tassle  of  the  blind. 

"Eh?"  said  Henry. 

"There  must  be  something  low  in  a  man  who  marries  a 
woman  like  that,  don't  you  think?" 

"  Oh,  I  don 't  know.    Why  should  there  be  ? " 

"Obvious,  isn't  it?  I  mean,  there  can't  be  much  in 
common  otherwise,  can  there?  Unless  the  man's  a  senti- 
mental ass.  It's  as  if  you  or  I  were  to  marry  one  of  the 
girls  out  there  in  the  yard,  milking  the  cows.  She'd  be 
awfully  useful  for  that  job  .  .  .  milking  cows  .  .  .  but 
you  wouldn't  want  her  to  be  doing  it  all  the  time.  It  de- 
pends, I  suppose,  on  what  you  want  to  do.  If  you've  got 
any  ambition!  ..." 

He  did  not  finish  the  sentence,  but  Henry  understood 
and  nodded  his  head  as  if  he  agreed  with  him. 

"I  must  trot  off,"  Gilbert  said  suddenly,  going  towards 
the  door.  "I'm  keeping  you!  ..."  He  paused  with  his 
fingers  on  the  handle  of  the  door.  "I  say,  Quinny,"  he 
said,  "do  you  know  anything  about  women?" 

"No,  not  much,"  Henry  answered.     "Do  you?" 

"No.  Funny,  isn't  it?"  he  replied,  and  then  he  went 
out  of  the  room. 

Henry  sat  still  for  a  moment,  staring  at  the  closed  door, 
and  then  turned  back  to  the  writing-table  and  took  the 
letter  to  Sheila  from  beneath  the  blotting-paper.  He  read 
it  through  and  sat  staring  at  it  until  the  writing  became 
a  dancing  blur.  .  .  .  He  got  up,  carrying  the  letter  in  his 
hand,  and  went  to  the  door  and  opened  it.  He  tried  to 
call  "Gilbert!"  but  the  name  came  out  in  a  whisper,  and 
before  he  could  call  again,  he  heard  the  noise  of  laughter 
and  then  the  sound  of  a  young  voice  singing.  Mary  was 
downstairs,  teasing  Ninian.    He  could  hear  Ninian,  half 


CHANGING  WINDS  153 

laughing,  half  growling,  as  he  shouted,  "Don't  be  an  old 
ass,  Mary!" 

He  shut  the  door  and  went  back  to  the  writing-table, 
still  holding  the  letter  in  his  hand,  and  while  he  stood 
there,  a  gong  was  sounded  in  the  hall. 

"Lord!"  he  said,  "I  shall  have  to  hurry!"  and  he  tore 
up  the  letter  and  put  it  in  the  waste-paper  basket. 

8 

They  passed  their  time  in  bathing  and  boating  and 
walking,  and  sometimes  Mary  was  with  them,  but  mostly 
she  was  not.  They  went  out  in  the  mornings,  soon  after 
breakfast,  taking  food  with  them,  and  seldom  returned 
until  the  evening.  They  took  long  tramps  to  Honiton 
and  Lyme  Regis  and  Sidmouth,  and  once  they  walked  to 
Exeter  and  returned  home  by  train.  Mary  liked  boating 
and  bathing,  but  she  did  not  care  for  walking,  and  the 
distances  they  travelled  were  beyond  her  strength ;  and  so 
it  came  about  that  gradually,  during  Henry's  stay  at  Bo- 
veyhayne,  she  ceased  to  take  part  in  their  outings.  It 
seemed  odd  to  him  that  she  did  not  make  any  reference  to 
their  love-making.  She  called  him  "Quinny"  and  was 
friendly  enough,  but  she  called  Gilbert  by  his  Christian 
name  and  was  as  friendly  with  him  as  she  was  with  Henry. 
He  felt  hurt  when  he  thought  of  her  indifference  to  him. 
"You'd  think  she'd  forgotten  about  it!"  he  said  to  him- 
self one  evening  when  he  was  sitting  alone  with  her  in  the 
garden,  and  he  oscillated  between  the  desire  to  ignore 
her  and  the  desire  to  have  it  out  with  her;  but  he  dallied 
so  long  between  one  desire  and  the  other  that  Gilbert  and 
Ninian  and  Mrs.  Graham  had  joined  them  before  he  had 
made  a  decision.  He  could  not  understand  Mary.  She 
seemed  to  have  grown  shy  and  quiet  and  much  less  de- 
monstrative than  she  had  been  when  he  first  knew  her. 

"Mary's  growing  up,"  Mrs.  Graham  said  to  him  one 


164  CHANGING  WINDS 

evening,  irrelevantly;  and  of  course  she  was,  but  she  had 
not  grown  up  so  much  that  there  should  be  all  this  differ- 
ence between  Mary  now  and  Mary  then. 

"Oh,  well!"  he  generally  concluded  when  his  thoughts 
turned  to  her,  "she's  only  a  kid!" 

And  sometimes  that  explanation  seemed  to  satisfy  him. 
There  were  other  times  when  it  failed  to  satisfy  him,  and 
he  told  himself  that  Mary  was  justly  cold  to  him  because 
he  had  not  been  loyal  to  their  compact.  He  had  not  an- 
swered her  letters  and  he  had  made  love  to  Sheila  Morgan. 
"I  suppose,"  he  said  to  himself,  "I'd  be  at  Ballymartin 
now,  making  love  to  Sheila,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  that 
horse!" 

He  tried  on  several  occasions  to  talk  to  ]\Iary  about 
her  unanswered  letter,  to  invent  some  explanation  of  his 
neglect,  but  always  he  failed  to  say  anything,  too  nervous 
to  begin,  too  afraid  of  being  snubbed,  too  eager  to  leave  the 
explanation  over  until  the  next  day;  and  so  he  never  "had 
it  out"  with  her. 

"I  am  a  fool !"  he  would  say  to  himself  in  angry  rebuke, 
but  even  while  he  was  reproaching  himself,  his  mind  was 
devising  an  excuse  for  his  behaviour.  "We're  really  too 
young,"  he  would  add.  "It's  silly  of  me  to  think  of  this 
sort  of  thing  at  all,  and  Mary's  still  a  schoolgirl !  .  .  ." 

"I'll  just  say  something  to  her  before  I  go  away,"  he 
thought.    * '  Something  that  will  .  .  .  explain  everything ! ' ' 

Then  Mr.  Quinn  wrote  to  him  to  say  that  he  was  in  Lon- 
don on  business.  He  was  anxious  that  Henry  should  come 
to  town  so  that  they  could  return  to  Ireland  together. 
"We'll  go  to  Dublin,"  he  wrote,  "and  I'll  leave  you  there. 
You  needn't  come  to  Ballymartin  until  the  end  of  the  first 
term." 

He  felt  strangely  chilled  by  his  father's  letter.  This 
jolly  holiday  at  Boveyhayne  was  to  be  the  end  of  one  life, 
and  the  journey  to  Dublin  was  to  be  the  beginning  of  an- 
other ;  and  he  did  not  wish  to  end  the  one  life  or  begin  the 


CHANGING  WINDS  155 

other.  He  could  feel  growing  within  him,  an  extraordi- 
nary hatred  of  Trinity  College,  and  he  almost  wrote  to  his 
father  to  say  that  he  would  rather  not  go  to  a  University 
at  all  than  go  to  T.C.D.  It  was  cruel,  he  told  himself, 
to  separate  him  from  his  friends  and  compel  him  to  go  to 
a  college  that  meant  nothing  on  earth  to  him. 

"I  shan't  know  any  one  there,"  he  said  to  Gilbert  and 
Ninian,  *'and  I  probably  won't  want  to  know  any  one. 
It's  a  hole,  that's  what  it  is,  a  rotten  hole.  If  the  dons 
were  any  good,  they'd  be  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge!  .  .  ." 

"You're  not  much  of  a  patriot,"  Ninian  said. 

"I  don't  want  to  be  a  damned  patriot.  I  want  to  be 
with  people  I  like.  I  don't  see  why  I  should  be  compelled 
to  go  and  live  with  a  lot  of  people  I  don't  know  and  don't 
care  about,  just  because  I'm  Irish  and  they're  Irish,  when 
I  really  want  to  be  with  you  and  Gilbert  and  Roger.  .  .  . 
I  haven't  seen  Roger  since  I  left  Rumpell's  and  I  don't 
suppose  I  shall  see  him  for  a  long  time!" 

Gilbert  tried  to  mock  him  out  of  his  anger.  ''This  emo- 
tion does  you  credit,  young  Quinny!"  he  said,  ''and  we 
are  touched,  Ninian  and  I.  Aren't  we,  Ninian?  But  you 
must  be  a  man,  Quinny!  Four  years  hence,  we  shall  all 
meet  in  London,  Deo  volenie,  and  we'll  be  able  to  compare 
the  education  of  Ireland  with  the  education  of  England. 
Oh,  Lordy  God,  I  sometimes  wish  we  hadn't  got  minds  at 
all.  I  think  it  must  be  lovely  to  be  a  cow  .  .  .  nothing  to 
do  but  chew  the  damned  cud  all  day.  No  soul  to  consider, 
no  mind  to  improve,  no  anything!  ..." 

Gilbert  and  he  left  Boveyhayne  together,  but  Gilbert  was 
only  going  as  far  as  Templecombe  with  him,  where  he  was 
to  change  on  his  way  to  Cheltenham.  Ninian  and  Mary 
saw  them  off  at  Whitcombe,  and  when  he  remembered  the 
circumstances  in  which  she  had  seen  him  off  before,  Henry 
had  a  longing  to  take  hold  of  her  arm  and  lead  her  to  the 
end  of  the  platform,  as  he  had  done  then,  and  tell  her  that 
he  was  sorry  for  everything  and  beg  her  to  start  again 


156  CHANGING  WINDS 

where  they  had  left  off  that  day  .  .  .  but  Gilbert  was  there 
and  Ninian  was  there,  and  there  was  no  opportunity,  and 
the  train  went  off,  leaving  the  explanation  unmade. 

9 

"Good-bye,  Quinny!*'  Gilbert  said  at  Templecombe. 

"Good-bye,  Gilbert!"  Henry  answered  in  a  low  tone. 

"I  suppose  you'll  write  to  me  some  day?" 

"I  suppose  so.    Yes,  of  course!  ..." 

"Ripping  day,  isn't  it?  Shame  to  be  wasting  it  in  a 
blooming  train!" 

"Yes!" 

He  wished  that  the  train  would  break  down  so  that  he 
need  not  part  from  Gilbert  yet,  but  while  he  was  wishing, 
it  began  to  move.  Gilbert  stood  back  from  the  carriage  and 
waved  his  hand  to  him,  and  Henry  leant  with  his  head 
through  the  window  of  his  carriage,  smiling.  .  .  . 

"Damn  Trinity,"  he  said,  sitting  back  in  his  seat,  and 
letting  depression  envelop  him.  "Damn  and  blast  Trin- 
ity! .  .  ." 


THE  SECOND  BOOK 

OF 

CHANGING  WINDS 


I  write  of  Youth,  of  Love,  and  have  Accesse 
By  these,  to  sing  of  cleanly-Wantonnesse. 

Hebrick. 


THE  FIRST  CHAPTER 


Henry  Quinn  climbed  into  a  carriage  at  Amiens  Street 
station  and  sat  back  in  his  seat  and  puffed  with  pleasure, 
blowing  out  his  breath  with  a  long  "poo-ing"  sound.  He 
was  quit  of  Trinity  College  at  last!  Thank  God,  he  was 
quit  of  it  at  last!  The  hatred  with  which  he  had  entered 
Trinity  had,  in  his  four  years  of  graduation,  been  mitigated 
.  .  .  there  were  even  times  when  he  had  kindly  thoughts  of 
Trinity  .  .  .  but  every  letter  he  received  from  Gilbert  Far- 
low  or  Ninian  Graham  or  Roger  Carey  stirred  the  resent- 
ment he  felt  at  his  separation  from  his  friends  who  had 
gone  to  Cambridge,  and  so,  in  spite  of  the  kindlier  feeling 
he  now  had  for  the  College,  he  was  happy  to  think  that  he 
was  quitting  it  for  the  last  time.  **But  it  isn't  Irish,"  he 
insisted  when  his  father  complained  of  his  lack  of  love  for 
Trinity.  "It's  ...  it's  a  hermaphrodite  of  a  college, 
neither  one  thing  nor  another,  English  nor  Irish.  I  always 
feel,  when  I  step  out  of  College  Green  into  Trinity,  that 
I've  stepped  right  out  of  Ireland  and  landed  on  the  point 
of  a  rock  in  the  middle  of  the  Irish  Sea  .  .  .  and  the  point 
pricks  and  is  damned  uncomfortable!" 

"You've  got  the  English  habit  of  damning  everything, 
Henry!"  his  father  replied  at  a  tangent. 

But  Henry  would  not  be  drawn  away  from  his  argument. 

"The  atmosphere  of  the  place  is  all  wrong,"  he  went  on. 
"The  Provost  looks  down  the  side  of  his  nose  at  you  if  he 
thinks  you  take  an  interest  in  Ireland!" 

Mr.  Quinn,  in  his  eagerness  to  defend  his  College  from 
reproaches  which  he  knew  to  be  deserved,  reminded  Henry 

159 


160  CHANGING  WINDS 

that  the  Provost  had  a  considerable  reputation  as  a  Greek 
scholar,  but  his  effort  only  delivered  him  more  completely 
into  Henry's  hands. 

"But,  father,"  Henry  said,  "you  yourself  used  to  say 
what's  the  good  of  knowing  all  about  Greece  when  you 
don't  know  anything  about  Ireland.  I  don't  care  about 
Greece  and  all  those  rotten  little  holes  in  the  ^gean  .  .  . 
that's  dead  and  done  with  .  .  .  but  I  do  care  about  Ire- 
land which  isn't  dead  and  done  with!" 

It  was  then  that  Mr,  Quinn  found  consolation.  "Well, 
anyway,  you've  learned  to  love  Ireland,"  he  said.  "Trin- 
ity's done  that  much  for  you!" 

"Trinity  hasn't  done  it  for  me,"  Henry  answered,  "I 
did  it  for  myself." 

Lying  back  in  his  seat,  waiting  for  the  train  to  steam  out 
of  the  station  on  its  journey  to  Belfast,  Henry  remembered 
that  conversation  with  his  father,  and  his  mind  speculated 
freely  on  his  attitude  towards  Trinity.  "I  don't  care,"  he 
said,  "if  I  never  put  my  foot  inside  the  gates  again!" 

Something  that  Patrick  Galway  said  to  him  once,  when 
he  and  John  Marsh  were  talking  of  Trinity,  came  back  to 
his  memory.  "The  College  is  living  on  Oliver  Goldsmith 
and  Edmund  Burke,"  Galway  said,  and  added,  "It's  like 
a  maiden  lady  in  a  suburb  giving  herself  airs  because  her 
great-grandfather  knew  somebody  who  was  great.  It 
hasn't  produced  a  man  who's  done  anything  for  Ireland, 
except  harm,  not  in  the  last  hundred  years  anyhow.  Law- 
yers and  parsons  and  officials,  that's  the  best  Trinity  can 
do!  If  you  think  of  the  Irishmen  who've  done  anything 
fine  for  Ireland,  you'll  find  that,  when  they  came  from  uni- 
versities at  all,  they  came  from  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  any- 
where on  God's  earth  but  Trinity.  Horace  Plunkett  was 
at  Oxford.  ..." 

"Eton,  too!"  Marsh  had  interjected. 

"Yes,  Eton!"  Galway  went  on.  "Think  of  it!  An 
Irish  patriot  coming  from  Eton  where  you'd  think  only 
Irish  oppressors  would  come  from !     If  Plunkett  had  been 


CHANGING  WINDS  161 

educated  in  an  Irish  school  and  sent  to  Trinity,  do  you 
think  he'd  have  done  anything  decent  for  Ireland?" 

"Yes,"  Henry  had  replied  promptly.  "He's  that  kind 
of  man!" 

"No,  he  wouldn't,"  Galway  retorted.  "They'd  have 
educated  the  decency  out  of  him,  and  he  'd  have  been  a  .  .  . 
a  sort  of  Lord  Ashtown!" 

But  Henry  would  have  none  of  that.  He  would  not  be- 
lieve that  a  man's  nature  can  be  altered  by  pedagogues. 

"Horace  Plunkett  would  have  been  a  good  Irishman  if 
he'd  been  born  and  reared  and  educated  in  an  Orange 
Lodge,"  he  said. 

"  I  'm  not  talking  about  natures, ' '  Galway  replied.  "  I  'm 
talking  about  beliefs.  They'd  have  told  him  it  was  no 
good  trying  to  build  up  an  Irish  nation.  ..." 

"He  wouldn't  have  believed  them,"  Henry  retorted. 
* '  Damn  it,  Galway,  do  you  think  a  man  like  Plunkett  would 
let  a  lot  of  fiddling  schoolmasters  knock  him  off  his  bal- 
ance?" 

"I'm  a  schoolmaster,"  Galway  answered,  "and  I  know 
what  schoolmasters  can  do!"  His  voice  changed,  deepen- 
ing, as  he  spoke.  "I  know  what  the  young  teachers  in 
Ireland  mean  to  do!" 

"What  do  they  mean  to  do?"  Henry  had  asked  jokingly. 

"Make  Irishmen,"  Galway  answered. 

"If  only  Trinity  would  make  Irishmen,"  he  went  on, 
"we'd  all  be  saved  a  deal  of  trouble.  But  it  won't,  and 
when  a  man  of  family,  like  Plunkett,  is  born  with  good  will 
for  Ireland,  he  has  to  go  to  England  to  be  educated.  And 
he  ought  to  be  educated  in  Ireland,  and  he  would  be  if 
Trinity  were  worth  a  damn.  I  wish  I  were  Provost,  I'd 
teach  Irishmen  to  be  proud  of  their  birth!" 

"Well,  when  we've  made  Ireland  a  nation,"  said  Henry, 
chaffing  him,  "we'll  make  you  Provost  of  Trinity!"  and 
Galway,  though  he  knew  that  Henry  was  jesting,  smiled 
with  pleasure. 

"When  Ireland  is  a  nation ! "  Marsh  murmured  dreamily. 


162  CHANGING  WINDS 


It  was  extraordinary,  Henry  thought,  how  little  at  home 
he  had  felt  in  Dublin.  He  had  the  feel  of  Ballymartin 
in  his  bones.  He  had  kinship  with  the  people  in  Belfast. 
At  Rumpell's  and  at  Boveyhayne  he  had  had  no  sensation 
of  alien  origin.  He  had  stepped  into  the  life  of  the  schoo? 
as  naturally  as  Gilbert  Farlow  had  done,  and  at  Bovey- 
hayne, even  when  he  still  had  difficulty  in  catching  the 
dialect  of  the  fishermen,  he  had  felt  at  home.  But  in  Dub- 
lin, he  had  an  uneasy  feeling  that  after  all,  he  was  a 
stranger.  In  his  first  year  at  Trinity,  he  had  been  bru- 
tally contemptuous  of  the  city  and  its  inhabitants.  "They 
can't  even  put  up  the  names  of  the  streets  so  that  people 
can  read  them,"  he  said  to  John  Marsh  soon  after  he  ar- 
rived in  Dublin.  "They're  so  damned  incompetent!" 
And  Marsh  had  told  him  to  control  his  Ulster  blood. 
' '  You  're  right  to  be  proud  of  Ulster, ' '  he  had  said,  * '  but  you 
oughtn't  to  go  about  talking  as  if  the  rest  of  Ireland  were 
inhabited  by  fools ! ' ' 

"I  know  I  oughtn't,"  Henry  replied,  "but  I  can't  help 
it  when  I  see  the  way  these  asses  are  letting  Dublin  down ! ' ' 

That  was  how  he  felt  about  Dublin  and  the  Dublin  peo- 
ple, that  Dublin  was  being  "let  down"  by  her  citizens. 
His  first  impression  of  the  city  was  that  it  was  noble,  even 
beautiful,  in  spite  of  its  untidiness,  its  distress.  He  would 
wander  about  the  streets,  gazing  at  the  fine  old  Georgian 
houses,  tumbling  into  decay,  and  feel  so  much  anger  against 
the  indifferent  citizens  that  sometimes  he  felt  like  hitting 
the  first  Dublin  man  he  met  .  .  .  hitting  him  hard  so  that 
he  should  bleed!  ..." 

"I  feel  as  if  Dublin  were  like  an  old  mansion  left  by 
a  drunken  lord  in  the  charge  of  a  drunken  caretaker,"  he 
said  to  Marsh.  "It's  horrible  to  see  those  beautiful  houses 
decaying,  but  it's  more  horrible  to  think  that  nobody 
cares ! ' ' 

Marsh  had  taken  him  one  Sunday  to  a  house  where  there 


CHANGING  WINDS  163 

were  ceilings  that  were  notable  even  in  Dublin  which  is 
full  of  houses  with  beautiful  ceilings. 

"  If  we  had  houses  like  that  in  Belfast, ' '  Henry  had  said, 
as  they  came  away,  * '  we  wouldn  't  let  them  become  slums ! ' ' 

"No,"  retorted  Marsh,  unable  to  restrain  himself  from 
sneering,  "you'd  malie  peep-shows  out  of  them  and  charge 
for  admission ! ' ' 

"Well,  that  would  be  better  than  turning  them  into 
slums,"  Henry  answered  good-humouredly. 

"Would  it?"  Marsh  replied. 

''Would  itf"  Henry  wondered.  The  train  was  now  on 
its  way  to  Belfast,  and,  looking  idly  out  of  the  window,  he 
could  see  the  waves  of  the  Irish  Sea  breaking  on  the  sands 
at  IMalahide,  heaving  suddenly  into  a  glassy-green  heap, 
and  then  tumbling  over  into  a  sprawl  of  white  foam. 
Would  it  ?  he  wondered,  thinking  again  of  what  Marsh  had 
said  about  the  Georgian  houses  with  their  wide  halls  and 
lovely  Adams  ceilings.  There  was  no  beauty  of  building 
at  all  in  Belfast,  and  no  one  there  seemed  anxious  that 
there  should  be :  in  all  that  city,  so  full  of  energy  and  pur- 
pose and  grit  and  acuteness  of  mind,  there  did  not  appear 
to  be  one  man  of  power  who  cared  for  the  fine  shape  or  the 
good  look  of  things ;  but,  after  all,  was  that  so  very  much 
worse  than  the  state  of  mind  of  the  Dublin  people  who, 
knowing  what  beauty  is,  carelessly  let  it  decay  ?  He  began 
to  feel  bitterly  about  Ireland  and  her  indifference  to  cul- 
ture and  beauty.  He  told  himself  that  Ireland  was  the 
land  of  people  who  do  not  care.  ... 

"They've  got  to  be  made  to  care!"  he  said  aloud. 

But  how  was  it  to  be  done?  .  .  . 

His  sense  of  being  an  alien  in  Dublin  had  persisted  all 
the  time  that  he  had  lived  there.  The  Dublin  people  were 
gregarious  and  garrulous,  and  he  was  solitary  and  reflec- 
tive. Marsh  and  Galway  had  taken  him  to  houses  where 
people  met  and  talked  without  stopping,  and  much  con- 
versation with  miscellaneous,  casually-encountered  people 
bored  Henry.     He  had  no  gift  for  ready  talk  and  he  dis- 


164  CHANGING  WINDS 

liked  crowds  and  he  was  unable  to  carry  on  a  conversation 
with  people  whom  he  did  not  know,  of  whose  very  names 
he  was  ignorant.  Sometimes,  he  had  envied  Marsh  and 
Galway  because  of  the  ease  with  which  they  could  con- 
verse with  strangers.  Marsh  would  talk  about  himself  and 
his  poems  and  his  work  with  an  innocent  vanity  that  made 
people  like  him;  but  Henry,  self-conscious  and  shy,  could 
not  talk  of  himself  or  his  intentions  to  any  but  his  inti- 
mates. Sitting  here,  in  this  carriage,  from  which,  even 
now,  he  could  see  in  the  distance,  veiled  in  clouds,  the  high 
peaks  of  the  Mourne  mountains,  he  tried  to  explain  this 
difference  between  JMarsh  and  himself.  Why  was  it  that 
these  Dublin  men  were  so  lacking  in  reticence,  so  eager  to 
communicate,  while  he  and  Ulstermen  were  reserved  and 
eager  to  keep  silent?  He  set  his  problem  in  those  terms. 
He  identified  himself  as  a  type  of  the  Ulsterman,  and  be- 
gan to  develop  a  theory,  flattering  to  himself,  to  account 
for  the  difference  between  Dublin  people  and  Ulstermen 
.  .  .  until  he  remembered  that  Ernest  Harper  was  an  Ul- 
sterman. Mr.  Quinn  had  taken  Henry  to  see  Harper  on 
the  first  Sunday  evening  after  they  had  arrived  in  Dublin 
from  England,  and  Harper  had  received  him  very  charm- 
ingly and  had  talked  to  him  about  nationality  and  co-op- 
eration and  the  Irish  drama  and  the  strange  inability  of 
Lady  Gregory  to  understand  that  it  was  not  she  who  had 
founded  the  Abbey  Theatre,  until  Henry,  who  had  never 
heard  of  Lady  Gregory,  began  to  feel  tired.  He  had  waited 
patiently  for  a  chance  to  interpolate  something  into  the 
monologue  until  hope  began  to  leave  him,  and  then,  with 
a  great  effort  he  had  interrupted  the  flow  of  Harper 's  vivid 
talk  and  had  made  a  reference  to  a  picture  hanging  on  the 
wall  beside  him.  It  showed  a  flaming  fairy  in  the  middle 
of  a  dark  wood.  .  .  . 
"Oh,  yes,"  Harper  said,  "that's  the  one  I  saw!" 
"You  saw?"  Henry  had  exclaimed  in  astonishment. 
And  then  he  remembered  that  Harper  spoke  of  fairies 
as  intimately  as  other  men  speak  of  their  friends.  .  .  . 


CHANGING  WINDS  165 

"Good  God!"  he  thought,  ''where  am  I?"  and  wondered 
what  Ninian  Graham  would  make  of  Ernest  Harper. 

Harper  was  an  Ulsterman,  and  so  was  George  Russell, 
whom  people  called  "A.E."  Marsh  and  Galway,  now  al- 
most inseparable,  had  taken  Henry  to  hear  George  Eussell 
speaking  on  some  mystical  subject  at  the  Hermetic  Club, 
and  Henry,  bewildered  by  the  subject,  had  felt  himself 
irresistibly  attracted  to  the  fiery-eyed  man  who  spoke  with 
so  little  consciousness  of  his  audience.  After  the  meet- 
ing was  ended,  he  had  walked  part  of  the  way  home  with 
Russell  and  had  listened  to  him  as  he  said  the  whole  of  his 
lecture  over  again  .  .  .  and  he  left  him  with  a  feeling  that 
Russell  was  unaware  of  human  presences,  that  the  company 
of  human  beings  was  not  necessary  to  him,  that  his  speech 
was  addressed,  not  to  the  visible  audience  or  the  visible  com- 
panion, but  to  an  audience  or  a  companion  that  no  one  but 
himself  could  see.  Was  there  any  one  on  earth  less  like 
the  typical  Ulsterman  than  George  Russell,  who  preached 
mysticism  and  better  business,  or  Ernest  Harper  who  took 
penny  tramrides  to  pay  visits  to  the  fairies? 

No,  this  theory  of  some  inherent  difference  between 
Ulstermen  and  other  Irishmen  would  not  work.  There  must 
be  some  other  explanation  of  Henry 's  dislike  of  crowds,  his 
silence  in  large  companies,  his  inability  to  assert  himself 
in  the  presence  of  strangers.  Why  was  it  that  he  was  un- 
able to  talk  about  himself  and  the  things  he  had  done  and 
the  things  he  meant  to  do  as  Marsh  talked?  It  was  not 
because  he  was  more  modest,  had  more  humility,  than 
Marsh;  for  in  his  heart,  Henry  was  vain.  .  .  .  And  while 
he  was  asking  himself  this  question,  suddenly  he  found  the 
answer.  It  was  because  he  was  afraid  to  talk  about  him- 
self, it  was  because  he  had  not  got  the  courage  to  be  vain 
and  self-assertive  in  crowds.  His  inability  to  talk  among 
strangers,  to  make  people  cease  their  own  conversation  in 
order  to  listen  to  him,  was  part  of  that  cowardice  that  had 
prevented  him  from  diving  into  the  sea  when  he  went  with 
his  father  to  swim  at  Cushendall  and  had  sent  him  shiver- 


166  CHANGING  WINDS 

ing  into  the  shelter  of  the  hedge  when  the  runaway  horse 
came  galloping  down  the  Ballymena  road,  .  .  . 

This  swift,  lightning  revelation  made  him  stand  up  in 
the  carriage  and  gape  at  the  photographs  of  Irish  scenery 
in  front  of  him. 

* '  Oh,  my  God ! "  he  said  to  himself,  "  am  I  always  to  be 
tortured  like  this?" 


He  sat  back  in  his  seat  and  lay  against  the  cushions 
without  moving.  He  saw  himself  now  very  clearly,  for 
he  had  the  power  to  see  himself  with  the  closest  fidelity. 
He  knew  now  that  all  his  explanations  were  excuses,  that 
the  bitter  things  he  had  sometimes  said  of  those  who  had 
qualities  which  he  had  not,  were  invented  to  prevent  him 
from  admitting  that  he  was  without  courage.  Any  fight, 
mental  or  physical,  unnerved  him  when  it  brought  him  into 
personal  contact  with  his  opponents.  He  could  write 
wounding  things  to  a  man,  but  he  could  not  say  them  to 
him  without  losing  possession  of  himself  and  his  tongue; 
and  so  he  passed  from  the  temper  of  a  cool  antagonist  to 
that  of  an  enraged  shrew.  He  had  tried  to  explain  the 
garrulity  of  the  Dublin  people  by  saying  that  they  were 
obliged  to  talk  and  to  persist  in  talking  because  ' '  otherwise 
they  'd  start  to  think ! ' '  but  he  knew  now  that  that  was  not 
an  accurate  explanation,  that  it  was  an  ill-natured  attempt 
to  cover  up  his  own  lack  of  force. 

"And  that's  worse  than  cowardice,"  he  said  to  him- 
self, *  *  to  excuse  my  own  f  unkiness  by  pretending  that  cour- 
age isn't  courage!" 

He  remembered  that  he  had  invented  a  bitter  phrase 
about  Yeats  one  night  when  he  had  seen  the  poet  in  a  house 
in  Dublin.  "Yeats  is  behaving  as  if  he  were  the  arch- 
angel Gabriel  making  the  Annunciation!"  he  had  said,  and 
the  man  to  whom  he  had  said  it  had  laughed  and  asked 
what  Henry  thought  Yeats  was  announcing. 


CHANGING  WINDS  IB"? 

"A  fresh  revision  of  one  of  his  lyrics,"  he  had  re- 
plied. .  .  . 

"And  I'd  give  the  world,"  he  said  now,  "to  be  able  to 
put  on  his  pontifical  air ! " 

He  had  a  shrinking  will;  his  instinct  in  an  emergency 
was  to  back  away  from  things.  He  had  not  got  the  ca- 
pacity to  compel  men  to  do  his  bidding  by  the  simple  force 
of  his  personality.  If  he  succeeded  in  persuading  people 
to  do  things  which  he  suggested  to  them  he  was  only  able 
to  do  so  after  prolonged  discussion,  sometimes  only  after 
everything  else  had  failed.  At  Eumpell's,  Gilbert  had 
made  suggestions  as  if  they  were  commands  that  must 
instantly  be  obeyed  .  .  .  and  they  had  been  instantly 
obeyed;  but  when  Henry  made  suggestions,  either  people 
did  not  listen  to  them  or,  having  listened  to  them,  they 
acted  on  some  other  suggestion,  until  at  last,  Henry,  dis- 
heartened, seldom  proposed  anything  until  the  last  moment, 
and  then  he  made  his  proposal  in  a  way  which  seemed  to 
indicate  that  he  thought  little  of  it;  and  when  some  of  his 
suggestions  were  accepted  and  had  proved,  in  practice,  to 
be  good,  his  attitude  had  been,  not  that  of  the  man  who  is 
absolutely  sure  of  himself,  but  rather  of  the  man  who 
gasps  with  relief  because  something  that  he  thought  was 
very  likely  to  be  a  failure,  had  proved  to  be  a  success. 

Depression  settled  on  him  so  heavily  that  he  began  to 
believe  that  he  was  bound  to  fail  in  everything  that  he 
undertook  to  do,  and  when  he  thought  of  the  bundle  of 
manuscript  in  his  portmanteau,  he  had  a  sudden  inclina- 
tion to  take  it  out  and  fling  it  through  the  window  of  the 
carriage.  He  had  not  spoken  of  his  writing  to  any  one 
except  John  ]\Iarsh,  and  to  him,  he  had  only  said  that  he 
intended  to  write  a  novel  some  day.  Once,  indeed,  he  had 
said,  "I've  written  quite  a  lot  of  that  novel  I  told  you 
about ! '  *  but  Marsh,  intent  on  something  else,  had  answered 
vaguely,  "Oh,  yes!"  and  had  changed  the  conversation, 
leaving  Henry  to  imagine  that  he  had  little  faith  in  his 
power  to  write.     He  had  been  so  despondent  after  that, 


168  CHANGING  WINDS 

that  he  had  gone  back  to  College  and,  having  re-read  what 
he  had  written,  had  torn  the  manuscript  in  pieces  and 
thrown  it  into  the  grate  because  it  seemed  so  dull  and 
tasteless.  He  had  not  written  a  word  after  that  for  more 
than  a  month,  and  he  might  not  have  written  anything  for 
a  longer  period  had  he  not  heard  from  Gilbert  Farlow  that 
he  had  finished  a  comedy  in  three  acts  and  had  sent  it  to 
Mr.  Alexander.  The  news  stimulated  him,  and  in  a  little 
while  he  was  itching  to  write  again.  In  the  evening,  he 
began  to  re-write  the  story  and  thereafter  it  went  on,  some- 
times quickly,  sometimes  slowly,  until  it  was  finished.  His 
feelings  about  it  changed  with  remarkable  rapidity.  He 
read  it  over,  in  its  unfinished  state,  many  times,  feeling 
at  one  time  it  was  excellent,  and  at  another  time  that  it 
was  poor,  flatulent  stuff,  without  colour  or  vivacity. 

Writing  did  not  give  pleasure  to  him :  it  gave  him  pain. 
He  felt  none  of  that  exultation  in  creating  characters  which 
he  had  been  told  was  part  of  the  pleasures  of  an  author. 
There  were  times,  indeed,  when  he  felt  a  mitigated  joy  in 
writing  because  his  ideas  were  fluent  and  words  fell  easily 
off  his  pen,  but  even  on  those  occasions,  the  labour  of  writ- 
ing hurt  him  and  exhausted  him.  The  times  of  pleasurable 
writing  were  short  interludes  between  the  long  stretches  of 
painful  writing,  little  oases  that  made  the  journey  across 
the  desert  just  possible.  And  then  there  were  those  periods 
of  appalling  misery  when,  having  ended  a  chapter,  he  won- 
dered what  he  should  make  his  people  do  next.  He  would 
leave  them,  landed  neatly  at  the  end  of  some  adventure  or 
emotional  crisis,  feeling  that  the  story  was  going  on  splen- 
didly and  that  his  power  to  write  was  full  and  strong,  and 
then,  having  written  the  number  of  the  next  chapter,  he 
would  reach  forward  to  write  the  first  word  .  .  .  and  sud- 
denly there  was  devastation  in  his  mind,  and  "IMy  God! 
I  don't  know  what  to  make  them  do  now!"  he  would  say. 

He  had  read  in  a  literary  journal  that  some  authors 
planned  their  stories  before  they  began  to  write  them. 
They  prepared  a  summary  of  the  tale,  and  then  enlarged 


CHANGING  WINDS  169 

the  summary.  They  knew  exactly  what  was  to  happen  in 
each  chapter.  A  character  could  not  move  or  rise  or  sit 
down  or  turn  pale  or  look  pleased  without  the  author  hav- 
ing known  about  it  long  before  the  act  was  performed. 
It  was  as  if  the  author  could  count  the  very  hairs  on  the 
heads  of  his  people.  "Just  like  God!"  Henry  had  said  to 
himself  when  he  had  finished  reading  the  article.  ...  He 
had  tried  to  make  a  plan,  and,  after  much  labour,  had 
completed  one ;  but  it  was  useless  to  him,  for  when  he  came 
to  write  out  the  story,  his  characters  kicked  it  aside  and 
insisted  on  behaving  in  some  other  way  than  he  had  planned 
that  they  should  behave.  It  was  as  if  they  had  taken  their 
destinies  into  their  own  hands  and  insisted  on  living  their 
lives  in  accordance  with  their  own  wishes  instead  of  living 
them  in  accordance  with  his.  ...  It  was  fortunate  then 
that  he  began  to  read  "Tristram  Shandy,"  for  when  he  saw 
how  Sterne's  pen,  refusing  to  obey  him,  had  filled  some  of 
his  pages  with  curly  lines  and  dots  and  confusions,  had  even 
declined  to  fill  a  chapter  at  all,  impudently  skipping  it, 
he  realised  that  authors  are  but  creatures  in  the  hands  of 
some  force  that  wills  them  to  create  things  which  they  can- 
not control  and  sometimes  cannot  understand. 

Writing  his  book  had  given  him  one  pleasure.  On  the 
day  on  which  he  wrote  the  last  word  of  it,  he  felt  joy. 
Before  he  began  to  write,  he  had  read  in  Forster's  "Life  of 
Dickens"  that  the  great  novelist  had  parted  from  his  char- 
acters with  pain.  Henry  parted  from  his  characters  with 
pleasure.  "Thank  God,"  he  said,  as  he  put  down  his  pen, 
"  I  Ve  finished  with  the  brutes ! ' ' 

He  had  enjoyed  reading  the  story  in  its  finished  state, 
and  when  he  had  packed  the  manuscript  into  his  port- 
manteau, he  had  felt  that  the  story  was  good,  and  had  sat 
in  a  chair  dreaming  of  the  success  it  would  make  and  the 
praise  he  would  receive  for  it.  He  tried  to  calculate  the 
number  of  copies  that  would  be  sold,  basing  his  calculations 
on  the  total  population  of  the  British  Isles.  "There  are 
over  forty  millions  of  people  in  England  and  Wales  alone," 


170  CHANGING  WINDS 

he  said  to  himself,  "and  another  ten  millions,  say,  in  Scot- 
land and  Ireland  .  .  .  about  fifty  millions  in  all.  I  ought 
to  sell  a  good  many  copies  .  .  .  and  then  there 's  America ! ' ' 
He  thought  that  ten  per  cent,  of  the  population  might  buy 
the  story,  and  believed  that  his  estimate  was  modest  until 
he  remembered  that  ten  per  cent,  of  fifty  millions  is  five 
millions!  .  .  . 

And  that  made  him  laugh.  Even  he,  in  his  wildest  imag- 
inings, did  not  dream  of  selling  five  million  copies  of  his 
novel. 


He  wished  now  that  he  had  asked  John  Marsh  and  Pat- 
rick Galway  to  read  the  story  and  tell  him  what  they 
thought  of  it.  They  were  honest  men,  and  would  criticise 
his  work  frankly.  At  that  moment,  he  had  an  insatiable 
longing  to  know  the  truth,  mingled  with  a  strange  fear  of 
knowing  it.  What  he  wished  to  know  was  whether  or  not 
he  had  the  potentialities  of  a  great  author  in  him.  He 
knew  that  his  story  was  not  commonplace  stuff,  but  he  was 
afraid  that  it  might  only  be  middling  writing,  and  he  did 
not  wish  to  be  a  middling  writer.  If  he  could  not  be  a 
great  writer,  he  did  not  wish  to  be  a  writer  at  all.  There 
were  thousands  and  thousands  of  novels  in  the  world  which 
did  no  more  for  men  than  enable  them  to  put  their  minds 
to  sleep.  Henry  did  not  wish  to  add  a  book  to  their  num- 
ber. There  were  other  books,  fewer  in  number  than  those, 
which  showed  that  their  authors  had  some  feeling  for  life, 
but  not  enough,  and  these  authors  went  on,  year  after 
year,  producing  one  or  more  novels,  each  of  which  '  *  showed 
promise,"  but  never  showed  achievement.  The  life  these 
men  pursued  always  eluded  them.  It  was  impossible  for 
Henry  to  join  the  crowd  of  people  who  produced  books 
which  perished  with  the  generation  that  they  pleased. 
That  much  he  knew.  But  he  was  eager  that  he  should  not 
fall  into  the  ranks  of  the  semi-great,  the  half-clever;  and 
his  fear  was  that  his  place  was  in  their  midst. 


CHANGING  WINDS  171 

"While  he  was  ruminating  in  this  manner,  he  remembered 
that  Gilbert  Farlow  had  written  to  him  a  few  days  before 
he  left  Dublin,  and  he  ceased  to  think  of  his  career  as  a 
writer  and  began  to  search  his  pockets  for  Gilbert's  letter. 

"I'll  show  the  manuscript  to  Gilbert,"  he  said  to  him- 
self.   *'01d  Gilbert  loves  telling  people  the  truth!" 

He  found  the  letter  and  began  to  read  it.  "Quinny," 
it  began,  for  Gilbert  had  abandoned  "dears"  because,  he 
said,  he  sometimes  had  to  write  to  people  who  were  de- 
testable : 

"Quinny:  How  soon  can  you  get  quit  of  that  barrack 
in  Dublin  where  your  misguided  father  thinks  you  are  be- 
ing taught  to  be  Irish?  Cast  your  eyes  on  the  address  at 
the  head  of  this  notepaper.  It  is  a  noble  house  that  Roger 
and  I  have  discovered.  Ninian  has  seen  it  and  he  approves 
of  it.  I  said  I'd  break  his  blighted  neck  for  him  if  he  dis- 
approved of  it,  which  may  have  had  something  to  do  with 
his  decision,  though  not  much,  for  Ninian  has  become  a 
very  muscular  young  fellow  and  I  shouldn't  have  liked  the 
job  of  breaking  his  neck  very  much.  Roger  and  I  have 
been  here  for  a  week  now,  and  Ninian  joins  us  at  the  end 
of  the  month.  He's  down  at  Boveyhayne  at  present,  catch- 
ing lobsters  and  sniffing  the  air,  all  of  which  he  says  is  very 
good  for  him  and  would  be  better  for  me.  And  you.  And 
Roger,  There  is  a  tablet  on  the  front  wall  of  the  house, 
fixed  by  the  London  County  Council,  which  says  that  Lord 
Thingamabob  used  to  live  here  sometime  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  landlord  tried  to  raise  the  rent  on  that 
account,  but  we  said  we  were  Socialists  and  would  expect 
the  rent  to  be  decreased  because  of  the  injury  to  our  prin- 
ciples caused  by  residence  in  a  house  that  had  been  inhab- 
ited by  a  member  of  the  cursed,  bloated  and  effete  aristoc- 
racy. He  begged  our  pardon  and  said  that  in  the  circum- 
stances, he  wouldn't  charge  anything  extra,  but  he  had  us 
in  the  end,  the  mouldy  worm,  for  he  said  that  it  was  the 
custom  to  make  Socialists  pay  a  quarter's  rent  in  advance. 


1^2  CHANGING  WINDS 

The  result  was  that  Roger  had  to  stump  up  ...  I  couldn't 
for  I  was  broke  .  .  .  which  made  dear  little  Roger  awfully 
unpleasant  to  live  with  for  a  whole  day.  I  offered  to  go 
back  and  tell  the  man  that  we  weren't  Socialists  at  all,  but 
Improved  Tories,  but  he  said  I'd  done  enough  harm.  It's 
a  pity  that  old  Roger  hasn't  got  a  better  sense  of  humour. 

We  have  chosen  two  rooms  for  you,  one  to  work  in,  and 
the  other  to  sleep  in.  We're  each  to  have  two  rooms,  so 
that  we  can  go  and  be  morose  in  comfort  if  we  want  to; 
but  I  daresay  in  the  evenings  we'll  want  to  be  together. 
I've  thought  out  a  scheme  of  decoration  for  your  room — 
all  pink  rosebuds  and  stuff  like  that.  Roger  asked  me  not 
to  be  an  ass  when  I  told  him  of  it.  His  notion  is  a  nice 
quiet  distemper.  Perhaps  you'd  better  see  to  the  decora- 
tion yourself  although  I  must  say  I  always  thought  your 
iaste  was  perfectly  damnable. 

By-the-way,  there's  a  ghost  in  this  house.  It's  supposed 
to  be  the  ghost  of  Lord  Thingamabob,  and  I  believe  it  is. 
I  saw  it  myself  three  nights  ago,  and  it  was  as  drunk  as  a 
fiddler.  My  God,  Quinny,  it's  a  terrible  thing  to  see  an 
intoxicated  spook.  Roger  wouldn't  believe  me  when  I  told 
him  about  it  afterwards.  He  said  I  was  drunk  myself  and 
that  he  heard  me  tumbling  up  the  stairs  to  bed.  Which 
is  a  lie.  I  did  see  it,  and  it  was  drunk.  I  heard  it  hic- 
cough! I  wouldn't  say  it  was  drunk  if  it  wasn't.  De 
mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum,  Quinny,  and  it  would  be  a  very 
dirty  trick  to  slander  a  poor  bogey  that  can't  defend  it- 
self. It  looked  very  like  its  descendant,  Lord  Middle- 
weight, and  it  had  the  same  soppy  grin  that  he  has  when 
he  thinks  he's  said  something  clever.  Damned  ass,  that 
chap! 

Alexander  sent  my  comedy  back.  He  sent  a  note  along 
with  it  and  told  me  what  a  clever  lad  I  am  and  more  or 
less  hinted  that  when  I've  grown  up,  I  can  send  him  an- 
other play.  I  suppose  he  thinks  I'm  a  kid  in  knicker- 
bockers. The  result  of  this  business  is  that  I'm  going  to 
try  and  get  a  job  as  a  dramatic  critic.    If  I  do,  God  help 


CHANGING  WINDS  173 

the  next  play  he  produces.  I'm  a  hurt  man,  and  I  shall 
let  the  world  know  about  it.  I'm  half-way  through  an- 
other piece  which  will  take  some  place  by  storm,  I  hope. 
It's  a  very  bright  play,  much  better  than  the  muck  Oscar 
Wilde  wrote,  not  so  melodramatic,  and  tons  better  than 
anything  Bernard  Shaw  has  written.    It's  all  about  me. 

We've  got  an  old  woman  called  Clutters  to  housekeep 
for  us.  I  chose  her  on  account  of  her  name,  and  it  is  a 
piece  of  good  luck  that  she  cooks  extraordinarily  well. 
There  is  also  a  maid,  but  we  don't  know  her  name,  so  we 
call  her  Magnolia.  I'm  really  writing  all  this  rot  to  get 
myself  into  the  "twitter-twitter"  mood.  One  of  the  char- 
acters in  my  new  comedy  talks  like  a  character  in  a  book 
by  E.  F.  Benson,  and  I  have  to  work  myself  up  into  a  state 
of  babbling  fatuity  before  I  can  write  her  lines  for  her. 

Come  to  London  as  soon  as  you  can. 

Gilbert. 


The  prospect  of  settling  in  London  in  the  society  of  his 
schoolfriends  pleased  him.  Marsh  and  Galway  had  tried 
to  persuade  him  to  make  his  home  in  Dublin,  pleading  that 
it  was  the  duty  of  every  educated  Irishman  to  live  in  Ire- 
land. "We  haven't  got  many  educated  men  on  our  side," 
Marsh  said,  "not  a  hundred  in  the  whole  of  Ireland,  and 
we  need  people  like  you ! ' '  They  talked  of  political  schemes 
that  must  be  prepared  for  the  parliament  that  would  some 
day  be  re-established  in  College  Green.  "And  they  can 
only  be  prepared  by  educated  men,"  Marsh  said. 

Henry  would  not  listen  to  them.  His  longing  was  to  be 
with  Gilbert  and  Roger  and  Ninian  in  London.  Dublin 
made  very  little  appeal  to  him,  and  the  job  of  regenerating 
Ireland  was  so  immense  that  it  frightened  him.  "I  haven't 
got  a  common  ground  with  you  people,"  he  said  to  Marsh 
and  Galway.  "You're  Catholic  to  start  off  with,  and  I'm 
like  my  father,  I  think  the  Catholic  religion  is  a  contempti- 


174  CHANGING  WINDS 

ble  religion.  And  you're  not  interested  in  anything  but 
Ireland  and  the  Gaelic  movement.  I  'm  interested  in  every- 
thing!" 

** Don't  you  want  to  do  anything  for  Ireland  then?" 
John  Marsh  had  asked. 

* '  Oh,  yes !  I  '11  vote  for  Home  Rule  when  I  get  a  vote, ' ' 
he  had  replied. 

' '  I  know  what  your  end  will  be, ' '  Patrick  Galway  added 
in  a  sullen  voice.  "You'll  become  a  Chelsea  Nationalist 
.  .  .  willing  to  do  anything  for  Ireland  but  live  in  it !" 

Well,  who  would  want  to  live  in  Ireland  with  its  penny- 
farthing  politics!  London  for  him!  London  and  a  sense 
of  bigness,  of  wide  ideas  and  the  constant  interplay  of 
many  minds! 

He  would  talk  to  his  father  about  Gilbert's  proposal. 
There  would  be  all  sorts  of  subjects  to  discuss  with  him, 
that  and  the  question  of  an  allowance  and  the  question  of 
a  career.  .  .  . 

The  train  ran  swiftly  through  the  suburbs  of  Belfast  and 
presently  pulled  up  at  the  terminus.  He  descended  from 
his  carriage  and  called  a  jarvey  who  drove  him  across  the 
city  to  the  Northern  Counties  station  where  he  took  train 
again.  It  was  late  that  night  when  he  arrived  at  Bally- 
martin. 


THE  SECOND  CHAPTER 


Mr.  Quinn  had  become  more  absorbed  in  the  Irish  Agri- 
cultural Co-Operative  Movement,  and  he  used  the  home 
farm  for  experiments  in  scientific  cultivation.  His  talk, 
when  Henry  returned  home,  was  mainly  about  a  theory  of 
tillage  which  he  called  "continuous  cropping,"  and  it  was 
with  difficulty  that  Henry  could  persuade  him  to  talk  about 
Gilbert's  proposal  that  he  should  join  the  household  in 
Bloomsbury. 

"I'm  glad  you've  come  home,  Henry,"  he  said  after 
breakfast  on  the  morning  following  Henry 's  return.  ' '  This 
system  of  continuous  cropping  is  splendid,  but  it  wants 
careful  attention.  You've  got  to  adjust  it  continually  to 
circumstances  .  .  .  you  can't  follow  any  rules  about  it  .  .  . 
and  if  you'll  just  stay  here  and  help  me  with  it,  we'll  be 
able  to  do  wonders  with  the  home  farm ! ' ' 

Henry  did  not  wish  to  settle  in  Ballymartin,  at  all  events 
not  for  a  long  time. 

* '  I  want  to  go  to  London,  father ! "  he  said. 

*  *  London !  What  for  ? ' '  Mr.  Quinn  exclaimed,  and  then 
before  Henry  could  say  why  he  wished  to  go  to  London, 
he  added,  "You'll  have  to  settle  on  something,  Henry.  I 
always  meant  you  to  take  over  the  estate  fairly  soon,  to 
work  things  out  with  me.    Don 't  you  want  to  do  that  ? ' ' 

*  *  Not  particularly,  father ! ' ' 

"Well,  what's  to  become  of  you,  then?  Do  you  want  to 
go  into  the  Army?    It's  a  bit  late!  ..." 

"No,  father!" 

"Or  the  Navy?  But  you  should  have  gone  to  Osborne 
long  ago  if  you  wanted  to  do  that ! ' ' 

175 


176  CHANGING  WINDS 

Henry  shook  his  head. 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  to  do.  Are  you  thinkin'  of 
the  law?" 

"I  don't  care  about  the  law,  father!  ..." 

"I  don't  care  about  it  myself,  Henry.  I  was  no  good  at 
it,  an'  mebbe  that's  the  reason  I  think  so  little  of  it.  But 
we  have  to  have  lawyers  all  the  same.  It  would  be  a  good 
plan  now  to  sentence  criminals  to  be  lawyers,  wouldn't  it? 
'The  sentence  of  the  Court  is  that  you  be  taken  from  this 
place  an'  made  to  practise  at  the  Bar  for  the  rest  of  your 
natural  life,  an'  may  the  Lord  have  mercy  on  your  soul!' 
Begod,  Henry,  that's  a  great  notion!" 

Henry  interrupted  his  father's  fancy.  "I  want  to 
write,"  he  said. 

*  *  Write ! "  Mr.  Quinn  exclaimed.    * '  Write  what  ? ' ' 

*' Books.    Novels,  I  think!  ..." 

Mr.  Quinn  put  down  his  paper  and  gaped  at  his  son. 
"Good  God,"  he  said,  "an  author!" 

"Yes,  father." 

"You 're  daft,  Henry!" 

Henry  got  up  from  his  chair,  and  went  across  to  his 
father  and  took  hold  of  his  shoulder  affectionately.  "No, 
father,  I'm  not,"  he  answered. 

"Yes,  you  are,  I  tell  you.    You're  clean  cracked!  ..." 

"I've  written  one  novel  already." 

Mr.  Quinn  threw  out  his  hands  in  a  despairing  gesture. 
"Oh,  well,"  he  said,  "if  you've  committed  yourself.  .  .  . 
Where  is  it?" 

"It's  upstairs  in  my  room.  The  manuscript,  I  mean. 
Of  course,  it  hasn't  been  published  yet." 

A  servant  came  into  the  room  to  clear  away  the  remains 
of  the  breakfast,  and  ^Ir.  Quinn  got  up  from  his  chair  and 
walked  through  the  open  window  on  to  the  terrace. 

"What's  it  about?"  he  said  to  Henry  who  had  followed 
him. 

"Oh,  love!"  Henry  answered,  seating  himself  beside  his 
father. 


CHANGING  WINDS  177 

Mr.  Quinn  grunted.  ' '  Huh ! "  he  said,  gazing  intently  at 
the  gravel.     ''Is  it  sloppy?" 

"I  don't  think  so,  father.    At  least,  I  hope  it  isn't!" 

"Or  dirty?" 

"No,  it  isn't  dirty.  I  know  it  isn't  dirty,"  Henry  said 
very  emphatically. 

Mr.  Quinn  did  not  answer  for  a  while.  He  got  up  from 
his  seat  and  walked  to  the  end  of  the  terrace  where  he 
busied  himself  for  a  few  moments  in  tending  to  a  rose- 
bush. Then  he  returned  to  the  seat  where  Henry  had  re- 
mained, and  said,  "Will  you  let  me  read  it,  Henry?" 

' '  Why,  yes,  father.  Of  course,  I  will, ' '  Henry  answered, 
rising  and  moving  towards  the  house.  "I'd  like  you  to 
read  it,"  he  added.  "Perhaps  you'll  tell  me  what  you 
think  of  it?" 

"I  will,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied,  closing  his  lips  down 
tightly. 

"Ill  just  go  and  get  it,"  Henry  said,  and  he  went  into 
the  house. 

Mr.  Quinn  remained  seated  on  the  terrace,  looking  rig- 
idly in  front  of  him,  until  Henry  returned,  carrying  a 
pile  of  manuscript.  He  took  the  paper  from  him  without 
speaking,  and  glanced  at  the  first  sheet  on  which  Henry 
had  written  in  a  large,  clear  hand : 

DRUSILLA:  A  NOVEL 

BY 

HENRY  QUINN. 

and  then  he  turned  the  page  and  read  what  was  written  on 
the  second  sheet: 

TO 
MY  FATHER 

He  looked  at  the  dedication  for  a  longer  time  than  he  had 
looked  at  the  title-page,  and  his  hand  trembled  a  little  as 
he  held  the  paper. 


178  CHANGING  WINDS 

'  *  I  thought  you  wouldn  't  mind,  father ! ' '  Henry  said. 

"Mind!"  Mr.  Quinn  replied.  "No,  I  don't,  Henry.  I 
.  .  .  I  like  it,  my  son.  Thanks,  Henry.  I  ..."  He  got 
up  and  moved  quickly  towards  the  window.  "I'll  just  go 
in  an*  start  readin'  it  now,"  he  said. 


He  returned  the  manuscript  to  Henry  on  the  following 
afternoon.     "I've  read  worse,"  he  said. 

He  walked  to  the  end  of  the  terrace  and  then  walked 
back  again.  Then  he  shouted  for  "William  Henry  Matier, 
who  came  running  to  him.  He  pointed  to  a  daisy  on  the 
lawn  and  asked  the  gardener  what  the  hell  he  meant  by  not 
keeping  the  weeds  down. 

"Ah,  sure,  sir!  .  .  ." 

"Root  the  damn  thing  up,"  Mr.  Quinn  shouted  at  him, 
"an'  don't  let  me  see  another  about  the  place  or  I'll  shoot 
the  boots  off  you!  I  don't  know  under  God  what  I  keep 
you  for!" 

"Now,  you  don't  mean  the  half  you  say,  sir!  .  .  ." 

"You're  not  worth  ninepence  a  week!" 

"Aw,  now,"  said  Matier,  who  knew  his  master,  "I'm 
worth  more'n  that,  sir!" 

"How  much  are  you  worth?  Tell  me  that,  "William 
Henry  Matier!" 

"William  Henry  rooted  up  the  daisy,  and  then  said  that 
he  wouldn't  like  to  put  too  high  a  price  on  himself.  .  .  . 

"You'd  be  a  fool  if  you  did,"  Mr.  Quinn  interrupted. 

"...  but  I'd  mebbe  be  worth  about  double  what  you 
named  yourself,  sir ! " 

"Eighteenpence!"  Mr.  Quinn  exclaimed. 

"Aye,  that  or  a  bit  more.  Were  you  wantin'  anything 
else,  sir ! "    He  winked  heavily  at  Henry  as  he  turned  away. 

"You're  not  worth  the  food  you  eat,"  Mr.  Quinn  said. 

"Aw,  now,  sir,  you  never  know  what  anybody's  worth 
'til  you  have  need  of  them,"  Matier  replied.     "A  man 


CHANGING  WINDS  179 

mightn't  be  worth  a  damn  to  you  one  day,  an'  he'd  mebbe 
be  worth  millions  to  you  the  next!" 

"There's  little  fear  of  you  bein'  worth  millions  to  any 
one.  Run  on  now  an'  do  your  work  if  you've  any  work  to 
do ! "  Mr.  Quinn  turned  to  Henry  as  the  gardener  went  off. 
* '  I  suppose  you  '11  be  wantin '  to  live  in  London  for  the  rest 
of  your  life?" 

"I  should  like  to  go  there  for  a  while  anyway,  father!" 

"Huh!  All  you  writin'  people  seem  to  think  there's  no 
life  to  be  seen  anywhere  but  in  London.  As  if  people 
hadn  't  got  bowels  here  as  well  as  in  town ! ' ' 

"I  don't  think  that,  father!  ..." 

"Oh,  well,  it  doesn't  matter  whether  you  think  it  or  not, 
you'll  not  be  happy  'til  you  get  to  London,  I  suppose. 
You'll  stay  here  a  wee  while  anyway,  won't  you?  You've 
only  just  come  home,  an'  it's  a  long  time  since  I  saw  you 
last!" 

"I'll  stay  as  long  as  you  like,  father." 

"Very  well,  then,  I'll  tell  you  when  I've  had  enough  of 
your  company  an'  then  you  can  go  off  to  your  friends. 
How  much  money  do  you  think  you'll  need  in  London? 
Don't  ask  for  too  much.  I  need  every  ha'penny  I  have  for 
the  work.  You've  no  notion  what  a  lot  it  costs  to  experi- 
ment wi '  land,  an '  I  'm  not  as  rich  as  you  might  imagine ! ' ' 

Henry  hesitated.  He  had  never  talked  about  money 
with  his  father,  and  he  had  a  curious  shyness  about  doing 
so  now.  "I  don't  know,"  he  replied.  "Would  two  hun- 
dred a  year  be  too  much  ?  .  .  . " 

"I'll  spare  you  two  hundred  an'  fifty!" 

"Thank  you,  father.    It's  awfully  good  of  you!" 

"Ah,  wheesht  with  you!  Sure,  why  wouldn't  a  man  be 
good  to  his  own  son.  I  suppose  now  you  want  to  hear 
what  I  think  of  your  book?" 

Henry  smiled  self-consciously.  "Yes,  I  should  like  to 
know  your  opinion  of  it.  I  thought  at  first  you  didn't 
think  much  of  it.     You  didn't  say  anything!  ..." 

"I'll  give  you  a  couple  of  years  to  improve  it,"  Mr. 


180  CHANGING  WINDS 

Quinn  answered.  "If  you  can't  make  it  better  in  that 
time,  you're  no  good!" 

"I  suppose  not." 

"An'  don't  hurry  over  it.  Go  out  an'  look  about  you  a 
bit.  There's  a  lot  of  stuff  in  your  story  that  wouldn't  be 
there  if  you  had  any  gumption.     Get  gumption,  Henry ! ' ' 

"I'll  try,  father.  Of  course,  I  know  I'm  very  inexperi- 
enced. ..." 

"You  are,  my  son,  an'  what's  more  you're  tellin*  every- 
body how  little  you  know  in  that  book  of  yours.  Man,  dear, 
women  aren't  like  that!  .  .  .  Well,  never  mind!  You'll 
find  out  for  yourself  soon  enough.  Mind,  I  don't  mean 
to  say  that  there  aren't  some  good  things  in  the  book. 
There  are  .  .  .  plenty!  If  there  weren't,  I'  wouldn't 
waste  my  breath  talkin'  to  you  about  it.  But  there  are 
things  in  it  that  are  just  guff,  Henry,  just  guff.  The  kind 
of  romantic  slush  that  a  young  fellow  throws  off  when  he 
first  realises  that  women  are  .  .  .  well,  women,  damn  it! 
...  I  wish  to  God,  you  would  write  a  book  about  continu- 
ous croppin'!  Now,  there's  a  subject  for  a  good  book! 
There 's  none  of  your  damned  love  about  that !  .  .  . " 


He  had  not  seen  Sheila  Morgan  since  the  morning  after 
he  had  failed  to  stop  the  runaway  horse.  Many  times, 
indeed,  she  had  been  in  his  mind,  and  often  at  Trinity,  in 
the  long  sleepless  nights  that  afflict  a  young  man  who  is 
newly  conscious  of  his  manhood,  he  had  turned  from  side 
to  side  of  his  bed  in  an  impotent  effort  to  thrust  her  from 
his  thoughts.  He  made  fanciful  pictures  of  her  in  his 
imagination,  making  her  very  beautiful  and  gracious.  He 
saw  her,  then,  with  long  dark  hair  that  had  the  lustre  of  a 
moonless  night  of  stars,  and  he  imagined  her,  sitting  close 
to  him,  so  that  her  hair  fell  about  his  head  and  shoulder 
and  he  could  feel  the  slow  movement  of  her  breasts  against 
his  side.    He  would  close  his  eyes  and  think  of  her  lips  on 


CHANGING  WINDS  181 

his,  and  her  heart  beating  quickly  while  his  thumped  so 
loudly  that  it  seemed  that  every  one  must  hear  it  .  .  .  and 
thinking  thus,  he  would  clench  his  fists  with  futile  force 
and  swear  to  himself  that  he  would  go  to  her  and  make  her 
marry  him.  Once,  when  he  had  spent  an  afternoon  at  the 
Zoo  in  the  Phcenix  Park,  he  had  lingered  for  a  long  while 
in  the  house  where  the  tigers  are  caged  because,  suddenly, 
it  seemed  to  him  that  the  graceful  beast  with  the  bright  eyes 
resembled  Sheila.  It  moved  so  easily,  and  as  it  moved, 
its  fine  skin  rippled  over  its  muscles  like  running  wa- 
ter. .  .  . 

"I  don't  suppose  she'd  like  to  be  called  a  tigress,"  he 
had  thought  to  himself,  laughing  as  he  did  so,  "but  that's 
what  she's  like.     She's  beautiful.  ..." 

And  later  in  that  afternoon,  he  thought  he  saw  a  resem- 
blance between  Mary  Graham  and  a  brown  squirrel  that  sat 
on  a  branch  and  cracked  nuts,  throwing  the  shells  away 
carelessly  .  .  .  the  Mary  he  had  known  when  he  first  went 
to  Boveyhayne,  not  the  Mary  he  had  seen  on  his  last 
visit. 

He  wondered  whether  Sheila  had  altered  much,  and  then 
he  wondered  what  change  four  years  had  made  in  Mary 
Graham.  Sheila,  who  had  been  dominant  in  his  mind  in 
his  first  year  at  Trinity,  had  receded  a  little  into  the  back- 
ground by  the  time  he  had  quitted  Dublin,  but  Mary,  never 
very  prominent,  had  retained  her  place,  neither  gaining  nor 
losing  position.  It  was  odd,  he  thought  to  himself,  that 
he  had  not  been  to  Boveyhayne  in  the  four  years  he  had 
been  at  T.C.D.  Mrs.  Graham  had  invited  him  there  several 
times,  but  he  had  not  been  able  to  accept  the  invitations: 
once  his  father  had  been  ill,  and  he  had  had  to  hurry  to 
Portriish,  where  he  was  staying,  and  remain  with  him  until 
he  was  well  again;  and  another  time  he  had  been  with 
Gilbert  Farlow  at  his  home  in  Kent ;  and  another  time  had 
agreed  to  go  tramping  in  Connacht  with  Marsh  and  Gal- 
way.  Ninian  and  Gilbert  and  Roger  had  spent  a  holiday  at 
Ballymartin.  .  .  .  Ninian  took  a  whole  week  to  realise  that 


182  CHANGING  WINDS 

he  was  in  Ulster  and  not  in  Scotland,  and  Gilbert  begged 
hard  for  the  production  of  a  typical  Irishman  who  would 
say  "God  bless  your  honour!"  and  **Bedad!"  and  "Be- 
jabers!" and  pretended  not  to  believe  that  there  were  not 
any  "typical  Irishmen".  .  .  and  went  away,  vowing  that 
they  would  compel  Mr.  Quinn  to  invite  them  to  stay  with 
him  in  the  next  vac.  It  was  then  that  Ninian  decided  that 
he  would  like  to  be  a  shipbuilder.  Mr.  Quinn  had  taken 
them  to  Belfast  to  see  the  launch  of  a  new  liner,  and  Tom 
Arthurs  had  invited  them  all  to  join  the  luncheon  party 
when  the  launch  was  over.  The  Vicereine  had  come  from 
Dublin  to  cut  the  ribbon  which  would  release  the  great  ship 
and  send  it  moving  like  a  swan  down  the  greasy  slips  into 
the  river;  and  Tom  Arthurs  had  conducted  her  through 
the  Yard,  telling  her  of  the  purpose  of  this  machine  and 
that  engine  until  the  poor  lady  began  to  be  dubious  of  her 
capacity  to  launch  the  liner.  There  were  other  guides,  ex- 
plaining, as  Tom  Arthurs  explained,  the  functions  of  the 
Yard  to  the  visitors,  but  Ninian  had  contrived  to  attach 
himself  to  Tom  Arthurs  and  he  listened  to  him  as  he  talked, 
as  simply  as  was  possible,  of  the  way  in  which  great  ships 
are  built.  Thereafter,  Ninian  had  tongue  for  none  but 
Tom  Arthurs,  and  he  told  him,  when  the  party  was  over 
and  the  guests  were  leaving  the  Yard,  that  he  would  like 
to  work  in  the  Island.  Tom  had  doubted  whether  Cam- 
bridge was  the  proper  preparation  for  shipbuilding.  .  .  . 
'  *  I  was  out  of  my  apprenticeship  when  I  was  your  age, ' '  he 
said  .  .  .  but  he  said  that  Ninian  could  think  about  it  more 
seriously  and  then  come  to  him  when  his  time  at  Cam- 
bridge was  up. 

"  I  'm  thinking  seriously  of  it  now, ' '  said  Ninian. 

' '  All  right,  my  boy ! '  *  Tom  Arthurs  answered,  laughing, 
and  slapped  him  on  the  back.  "We'll  see  what  we  can  do 
for  you ! " 

And  Ninian,  flushing  like  a  girl,  went  away  full  of  hap- 
piness, and  soon  afterwards  began  to  imitate  Tom  Arthurs' 
Ulster  speech  in  the  hope  that  people  would  think  he  was 


CHANGING  WINDS  183 

related  to  the  shipbuilder  or,  at  all  events,  a  countryman 
of  his. 

It  was  odd,  indeed,  that  Henry  had  not  seen  Mary  in 
that  time,  but  it  was  still  more  odd  that  he  had  not  seen 
Sheila.  Matt  Hamilton  had  died  soon  after  Henry  had 
entered  Trinity,  but  Mrs.  Hamilton  still  had  the  farm 
which,  people  understood,  was  to  be  left  to  Sheila  when  her 
aunt  died.  He  had  not  cared  to  go  to  the  farm  ...  a 
mixture  of  pride  and  shyness  prevented  him  from  doing 
so  .  .  .  but  he  had  hoped  to  meet  her  on  the  roads  about 
Ballymartin.  "Perhaps  by  this  time,"  he  said  to  himself, 
'  *  she  will  have  forgotten  my  funk ! ' '  But  although  he  fre- 
quently loitered  in  the  roads  about  the  "loanie,"  he  never 
met  her,  and  it  was  not  until  he  said  some  casual  things  to 
William  Henry  Matier  that  he  discovered  that  she  was  not 
at  the  farm.  "I  heerd  tell  she  was  visitin'  friends  in 
Bilf ast ! ' '  Matier  said,  and  with  that  he  had  to  be  content. 
Ninian  and  Gilbert  and  Koger  were  at  Ballymartin  then, 
and  he  had  little  opportunity  to  mourn  over  her  absence; 
indeed,  when  he  remembered  that  they  were  with  him,  he 
was  glad  that  she  was  not  at  the  farm :  their  presence  would 
have  made  difficulties  in  the  way  of  his  intercourse  with 
her.  He  would  try  to  be  alone  at  Ballymartin,  in  the  next 
vacation,  and  then  he  would  be  able  to  bring  her  to  his 
will  again.  But  he  did  not  spend  the  next  vacation  at 
home,  and  so,  with  this  and  other  absences  from  Bally- 
martin, he  was  unable  to  see  her  for  the  whole  of  his  time 
at  Trinity.  Neither  he  nor  his  father  had  spoken  of  her 
since  the  day  when  I\Ir.  Quinn  had  solemnly  led  him  to  the 
library  to  rebuke  him  for  his  sweethearting.  Mr.  Quinn, 
indeed,  had  almost  forgotten  about  Henry's  lovemaking 
with  Sheila,  and  when  he  met  the  girl  and  remembered 
that  there  had  been  lovemaking  between  his  son  and  her, 
he  thought  to  himself  that  Henry  had  probably  completely 
forgotten  her.  .  .  . 

He  wished  to  see  her  again,  and  his  desire  became  so 
strong  that  he  started  to  walk  across  the  fields  to  the 


184  CHANGING  WINDS 

"loanie"  that  led  to  Hamilton's  farm  before  he  was  aware 
of  what  he  was  about.  His  mind  filled  again  with  the 
visions  he  had  had  of  her  at  Trinity,  and  he  imagined  that 
he  saw  her  every  now  and  then  hiding  behind  a  tree,  ready 
to  spring  out  on  him  and  startle  him  with  a  loud  whoop,  or 
running  from  him  and  laughing  as  she  ran.  .  .  . 


He  met  her  in  the  "loanie,"  and  for  a  few  moments  he 
did  not  recognise  her.  She  was  sitting  on  the  grass,  in 
the  shade  of  a  hedge,  huddling  a  baby  close  to  her  breast, 
and  he  saw  that  she  was  suckling  it. 

"Oh,  Henry,  is  that  you?"  she  said,  starting  up  hur- 
riedly so  that  the  baby  could  not  suck.  She  drew  her 
blouse  clumsily  together,  but  the  fretful  child  would  not  be 
pacified  until  she  had  started  to  feed  it  again,  and  so  she 
resumed  her  seat  on  the  grass. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  back,"  she  said,  holding  the 
baby  up  to  her.    "Are  you  here  for  long?" 

He  did  not  answer  immediately.  He  had  not  yet  com- 
pletely realised  that  this  was  Sheila  whom  he  had  been 
eager  to  marry,  and  then  when  he  understood  at  last  that 
this  indeed  was  she,  something  inside  him  kept  exclaiming, 
"But  she's  got  a  baby!"  and  he  wondered  why  she  was 
feeding  it. 

"Are  you  married.  Sheila?"  he  said. 

She  laughed  at  him,  and  answered,  "That's  a  quare  ques- 
tion to  be  askin',  an'  me  with  this  in  my  arms!"  She 
looked  at  the  baby  as  she  spoke. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  married,"  he  replied.  "I 
was  coming  up  to  the  farm  to  see  you!" 

"I've  been  married  this  year  past,"  she  said. 

"I  didn't  know,"  he  murmured.  "No  one  told 
me!  .  .  ." 

And  suddenly  he  saw  that  her  face  was  coarser  than  it 
had  been  when  he  loved  her.    Her  hair  was  tied  untidily 


CHANGING  WINDS  185 

about  her  head,  and  he  could  see  that  her  hands,  as  she 
held  the  child,  were  rough  and  red,  and  that  her  nails  were 
broken  and  misshapen.  Her  boots  were  loosely  laced,  and 
she  seemed  to  be  sprawling.  .  .  . 

"  I  'm  all  throughother, ' '  she  said,  as  if  she  realised  what 
was  in  his  mind  and  was  anxious  to  excuse  herself  to  him. 
"This  wee  tory  hardly  gives  me  a  minute's  peace,  an'  my 
aunt 's  not  so  well  as  she  was ! ' ' 

He  nodded  his  head,  but  did  not  speak. 

* '  Is  it  a  boy  or  a  girl  ? "  he  asked  after  a  while, 

"It's  a  boy,"  she  said,  "an'  the  very  image  of  his  da. 
He 's  a  lovely  child,  Henry.    Just  look  at  him  1 ' ' 

He  came  nearer  to  her  and  looked  at  the  baby  who  had 
his  little  fingers  at  her  breast  as  if  he  would  prevent  her 
from  taking  it  from  him.  The  child,  still  sucking,  looked 
up  at  him  with  greedy-sleepy  eyes. 

"Isn't  he  a  gran'  wee  fella?"  she  went  on,  eyeing  her 
son  proudly. 

"Whom  did  you  marry?"  he  asked. 

"You  know  him  well,"  she  answered.  "Peter  Logan 
that  used  to  keep  the  forge  .  .  .  that's  who  I  married. 
D  'ye  mind  the  way  he  could  bend  a  bar  of  iron  with  his  two 
hands?  ..." 

Henry  remembered.  "Doesn't  he  keep  the  forge  now?" 
he  asked. 

"No,  he  sold  it  to  Dan  McKittrick  when  he  married  me. 
We  needed  a  man  on  the  farm,  an'  he's  gran'  at  it.  There 
isn't  a  one  in  the  place  can  bate  him  at  the  reapin',  an' 
you  should  see  the  long,  straight  furrows  he  can  plough. 
The  child's  the  image  of  him,  an'  I  declare  by  the  way  he's 
tuggin'  at  me  ...  be  quit,  will  you,  you  wee  tory,  an'  not 
be  hurtin'  me  with  your  greed!  .  .  .  he'll  be  as  strong  as 
his  da,  an'  mebbe  stronger!" 

"Are  you  stay  in'  long?"  she  said  again. 

"No,"  he  answered.     "  I 'm  going  to  London !  ..." 

"London!    Lord  bless  us,  that's  a  long  way!" 

**I'm  going  soon  ...  in  a  day  or  two,"  he  went  on, 


186  CHANGING  WINDS 

making  his  resolution  as  he  spoke.  The  sight  of  her  bare 
breast  embarrassed  him,  and  he  wanted  to  go  away 
quickly. 

"You're  a  one  for  roamin'  the  world,  I  must  say!"  she 
said.  "You're  no  sooner  here  nor  you're  away  again. 
Mebbe  you'll  come  up  an'  see  my  aunt  .  .  .  she  was  talkin' 
about  you  only  last  week  ...  an'  Peter 'd  be  right  an' 
glad  to  welcome  you ! ' ' 

"No,  thanks,  not  to-day,"  he  answered.  "I've  some- 
thing to  do  at  home  .  .  .  I'm  sorry!  .  .  ." 

"But  you  said  you  were  comin'  to  see  me!  .  .  ." 

"I  know,  but  I've  just  remembered  something  ...  I'm 
sorry !"  He  was  speaking  in  a  jerky,  agitated  manner  and 
he  began  to  move  away  as  if  he  were  afraid  that  she  would 
detain  him.    "I'll  come  another  time,"  he  added. 

"Well,  you're  the  quare  man,"  she  said.  " Anybody 'd 
think  you  were  afeard  of  me,  the  hurry  you're  in  to  run 
away!" 

He  laughed  nervously.  "Of  course,  I'm  not  afraid  of 
you,"  he  exclaimed.    "Why  should  I  be?" 

"I  don't  know!"  She  looked  at  him  for  a  few  seconds, 
and  then  the  whimsical  look  that  he  remembered  so  well 
came  into  her  eyes.  "D'ye  mind  the  way  you  wanted  to 
marry  me,  Henry?"  she  said. 

"Yes  ...  yes!    Ha,  ha!" 

"An'  now  I've  this!    It's  a  quaren  funny,  isn't  it?" 

"Funny?" 

"Aye,  the  way  things  go.  I  wonder  what  sort  of  a  child 
I'd  a'  had  if  I'd  married  you!" 

"I  really  don't  know!  ...  I'm  afraid  I  must  go  now!" 

"Well,  good-bye,  Henry !  I'll  mebbe  see  you  again  some 
time!" 

She  held  out  her  hand  to  him  and  he  took  it,  and  then 
dropped  it  quickly. 

"Yes,  perhaps,"  he  answered,  and  added,  "Good-bye!" 

He  went  off  quickly,  not  looking  back  until  he  had 
reached  the  foot  of  the  "loanie,"  and  then  he  stood  for  a 


CHANGING  WINDS  187 

second  or  two  to  watch  her.  She  was  busy  with  her  baby 
again.  He  could  see  her  white  breast  shining  in  the  sun- 
light, and  her  head  bent  over  the  sucking  child. 

"Well,  I'm  damned,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  hurried 
off. 

And  as  he  hurried  home,  his  mind  set  on  quitting  Bally- 
martin  as  speedily  as  possible,  he  remembered  the  casual 
way  in  which  she  had  spoken  of  their  possibly  meeting 
again.  "I'll  mebbe  see  you  some  time!"  she  had  said. 
So  indifferent  to  him  as  that,  she  was,  so  happy  in  her  love 
for  her  husband  whom  he  remembered  as  a  great  big,  hairy, 
tanned  man  who  beat  hot  iron  with  heavy  hammers  and 
bent  it  into  wheels  and  shoes  for  horses. 

"She  takes  more  interest  in  that  putty-faced  brat  of 
hers  than  she  does  in  me, ' '  he  said  to  himself,  angrily,  and 
then,  so  swift  were  his  changes  of  mood,  he  began  to  laugh. 
"Of  course,  she  does,"  he  said  aloud.  "Why  shouldn't 
she?    It's  hers,  isn't  it?" 

He  remembered  her  young  beauty  and  contrasted  it  with 
her  appearance  when  he  saw  her  in  the  "loanie"  with  her 
child.  In  a  few  years,  he  thought,  she  would  be  like  any 
village  woman,  worn  out,  misshapen,  tired,  with  gnarled 
knuckles  and  thickened  hands.  Already  she  had  begun  to 
neglect  her  hair.  .  .  . 

"It's  a  damned  shame,"  he  murmured.  "If  she'd  mar- 
ried me  she'd  have  kept  her  looks!  ..." 

"But  she  wouldn't  marry  me,"  he  went  on.  "I  wasn't 
man  enough  for  her.  .  .  .  My  God,  I  wish  I  was  out  of 
this!" 


"Father,"  he  said  when  he  got  home,  "I'd  like  to  go  to 
London  at  once!" 

"You  can't  go  this  minute,  my  son.  There's  no  train 
the  night!" 

* '  I  mean,  I  want  to  go  as  soon  as  possible ! ' ' 


188  CHANGING  WINDS 

Mr.  Quinn  glanced  sharply  at  him,  "You're  in  a  des- 
perate hurry  all  of  a  sudden,"  he  said.     "What's  up?" 

"Nothing,  father,  only  I  want  to  get  to  work,  and  I  can't 
work  here!  .  .  ." 

"Restless,  are  you?  I  was  hopin'  you'd  give  me  a  bit 
of  your  company  a  while  longer !  .  .  . " 

"I'm  sorry,  father!  .  .  ." 

"That's  all  right,  my  boy,  that's  all  right.  "When  do 
you  want  to  go?" 

' '  To-morrow !  * ' 

*  *  You  've  only  been  home  a  short  time.  .  .  .  Never  mind ! 
I'll  come  up  to  Belfast  an'  see  you  off.  There's  a  Co-op- 
erative Conference  there  the  day  after  the  morra,  an'  I 
may  as  well  go  up  with  you  as  go  up  alone ! ' ' 

Henry  knew  that  his  father  was  hurt  by  his  sudden  de- 
cision to  leave  Ballymartin,  and  he  felt  sorry  for  the  old 
man's  disappointment,  but  he  felt,  too,  that  he  could  not 
bear  to  stay  near  Hamilton's  farm  at  present,  knowing  that 
Sheila,  whom  he  had  loved  and  idealised,  was  likely  to 
meet  him  in  the  roads  at  any  moment,  a  baby  in  her  arms, 
perhaps  at  her  breast,  and  a  husband  somewhere  near  at 
hand. 

"I  must  go,"  he  told  himself.  "I  must  get  over 
this.  .  .  ." 


Mr.  Quinn  and  he  travelled  to  Belfast  together  on  the 
following  morning,  and  they  spent  the  hour  before  the 
steamer  sailed  for  Liverpool  in  pacing  up  and  down  the 
deck. 

"You  can  write  to  me  when  you  get  to  London,"  Mr. 
Quinn  said,  and  Henry  nodded  his  head. 

He  was  very  conscious  now  of  his  father's  disappoint- 
ment, and  although  he  was  determined  to  go  to  London, 
he  was  moved  by  the  affectionate  way  in  which  the  old  man 
tried  to  provide  for  his  needs  on  the  journey. 


CHANGING  WINDS  189 

* '  Hap  yourself  well, ' '  he  had  said  when  they  crossed  the 
gangway  on  to  the  boat.  "These  steamers  never  give  you 
enough  clothes  on  your  bunk.  I'd  put  my  overcoat  on 
top  of  the  quilt  if  I  were  you !  .  .  . " 

They  stood  for  a  time  looking  across  the  Lagan  at  the 
shipyard,  and  talked  about  the  possibility  of  Ninian  Gra- 
ham entering  the  shipbuilding  firm,  and  then  they  moved 
to  the  side  of  the  boat  that  was  against  the  quay-wall. 
The  hour  at  which  the  steamer  was  to  depart  was  drawing 
near  and  the  number  of  passengers  had  increased.  They 
could  hear  the  noise  of  the  machinery  as  the  cargo  was 
lowered  from  the  quay  into  the  hold,  and  now  and  then, 
the  squealing  of  pigs  as  the  drovers  pushed  them  up  the 
gangways.  A  herd  of  cattle  came  through  the  sheds  and 
stumbled  in  a  startled,  stupid  fashion  on  to  the  lower  decks, 
while  the  drovers  thwacked  them  and  shouted  at  them. 
There  was  a  small  crowd  of  people,  friends  of  passengers 
and  casual  onlookers,  standing  on  the  quay  waiting  to  see 
the  ship  go  out,  and  some  of  them  were  shouting  messages 
to  their  friends.  Henry  had  always  liked  to  watch  crowds 
at  times  such  as  this,  and  often  in  Dublin,  he  had  spent 
a  while  in  Westland  Row  Station,  looking  at  the  people 
who  were  going  to  England.  He  was  so  interested  in  the 
crowd  on  the  quay  that  he  did  not  hear  his  father  speaking 
to  him. 

"I  want  to  speak  to  you,  Henry,"  the  old  man  said, 
and  then  receiving  no  answer,  he  said  again,  "I  want  to 
speak  to  you,  Henry ! ' ' 

"Yes,  father?"  Henry  answered,  without  looking  up. 

"Turn  round  a  minute,  Henry!  ..."  He  hesitated, 
and  Henry  turning  round,  saw  that  his  father  was  embar- 
rassed. 

"What  is  it,  father?"  he  said. 

"I  just  wanted  to  say  something  to  you,  Henry.  You 
see,  you're  beginnin'  another  life  .  .  .  out  of  my  control, 
if  you  follow  me  .  .  .  not  that  I  ever  tried  to  boss 
you.  .  .  ." 


190  CHANGING  WINDS 

"No,  father,  you've  never  done  that.  You've  been  aw- 
fully decent  to  me!" 

"Ah,  now,  no  more  of  that !  I  just  wanted  to  say  some- 
thin'  to  you,  only  I  don't  rightly  know  how  to  begin.  ..." 
He  fumbled  for  words  and  then,  as  if  making  a  reckless 
plunge,  he  blurted  out,  "Do  you  know  much,  Henry?" 

"Know  much?"  Henry  answered  vaguely. 

"Aye.  About  women  an'  things?  Did  you  know  any 
women  in  Dublin?" 

"Oh,  yes,  a  few!"  Henry  answered. 

"Did  .  .  .  did  you  have  anything  to  do  with  them?" 

"Anything  to  do  with  them!" 

"Aye!" 

Henry  began  to  comprehend  his  father 's  questions.  *  *  Oh, 
I  ...  I  kissed  one  or  two  of  them ! "  he  said. 

"Was  that  all?"  Mr.  Quinn's  voice  was  so  low  that 
Henry  had  difficulty  in  hearing  him. 

"Yes,  father,"  he  answered. 

"You  know,  don't  you,  that  there's  other  things  than 
kisses?     Or  do  you  not  know  it?" 

Henry  nodded  his  head. 

"I'm  .  .  .  I'm  not  interferin'  with  you,  Henry.  I'm 
not  just  askin'  for  the  sake  of  askin'  .  .  .  but  .  .  .  well, 
do  you  know  anything  about  those  .  .  .  things?" 

He  moved  slightly  as  he  spoke,  as  if,  by  moving,  he 
could  take  the  edge  off  his  question. 

*  *  I  know  about  them,  father.  Something ! ' '  Henry  said 
huskily,  for  his  father's  questions  embarrassed  him 
strangely. 

"You've  never  .  .  .  you've  never!  ..." 

"No,  father!" 

Mr.  Quinn  turned  away  and  looked  over  the  side  of  the 
boat.  He  seemed  to  be  watching  a  piece  of  orange  peel 
which  floated  between  the  wall  and  the  side  of  the  boat. 
The  first  bell  of  warning  to  friends  of  passengers  was 
sounded,  and  he  turned  sharply  and  looked  at  his  son. 
"I'll  have  to  be  goin'  soon,"  he  said. 


CHANGING  WINDS  191 

"That's  only  the  first  bell,  father,"  Henry  replied. 
"There's  plenty  of  time  yet!" 

"Aye!"  Mr.  Quinn  glanced  about  the  deck  which  was 
now  covered  by  passengers.  "You'll  have  plenty  of  com- 
pany goin'  over,"  he  said. 

"Yes!" 

They  were  making  conversation  with  difficulty.  Mr. 
Quinn  felt  nervous  and  a  little  unhappy  because  Henry  was 
leaving  him  so  soon,  and  Henry  felt  disturbed  because  of 
the  strange  conversation  he  had  just  had  with  his  father. 
He  had  a  shamed  sense  of  intrusion  into  privacies. 

"It's  very  interestin'  to  see  a  boat  goin'  out  to  sea," 
Mr.  Quinn  was  saying.  '  *  I  used  to  come  down  here  many 's 
a  time  when  I  was  a  young  fellow  just  to  watch  the 
steamers  goin*  out.  Did  you  ever  stan'  on  top  of  a  hill 
an'  watch  a  boat  sailin'  out  to  sea?" 

"No,  I  don't  remember  doing  that!" 

"It's  a  fine  sight,  that!  You  see  her  lights  shinin' 
in  the  dark  a  long  way  off,  but  you  can't  see  her,  except 
mebbe  the  foam  she  makes,  an'  begod  you  near  want  to 
cry.  That's  the  way  it  affects  me  anyway.  .  .  .  Henry,  if 
you  ever  get  into  any  bother  over  the  head  of  a  woman, 
you'll  tell  me,  won't  you,  an'  I'll  stan'  by  you!"  He 
said  this  so  suddenly,  coming  close  to  Henry  as  he  said  it, 
that  Henry  was  startled.  "You'll  not  forget,"  he  went 
on. 

"No,  father,  I  won't  forget!" 

"I've  been  wantin'  to  say  that  to  you  for  a  good  while, 
but  it's  a  hard  thing  for  a  man  to  say  to  his  own  son.  I 
could  say  it  easier  to  somebody  else's  son  nor  I  can  to  you. 
London's  a  quare  place  for  a  young  fella,  Henry,  but  it's 
no  good  preachin'  to  men  about  women  ...  no  good  at 
all.  The  only  thing  you  can  do  is  to  stan'  by  a  man  when 
he  gets  into  bother.  That 's  all,  except  to  hope  to  God  he  '11 
not  disgrace  his  name  if  he's  your  son.  You  know  where 
to  write  to,  Henry,  if  you  need  any  help!  .  .  .  Hilloa, 
there's  the  second  bell!" 


192  CHANGING  WINDS 

They  could  hear  the  sailors  calling  out  "Any  more  for 
the  shore!"  and  the  sound  of  hurried  farewells  and  the 
shuffle  of  awkward  feet  along  the  gangways. 

"Good-bye,  Henry!" 

"Good-bye,  father!" 

"You'll  not  forget  to  write  now  an'  awhile?" 

"I'll  write  to  you  the  minute  I  get  to  London!" 

"Ah,  don't  hurry  yourself!  You'll  mebbe  be  tired  out 
when  you  arrive.  Just  wait  'til  the  mornin',  an'  write  at 
your  leisure.  ..." 

* '  Hurry  up,  sir ! "  an  impatient  sailor  said. 

"Ah,  sure,  there's  plenty  of  time,  man!  Good-bye, 
Henry !  I  believe  I  'm  the  last  one  to  go  ashore.  Well, 
so  long!" 

They  shook  hands,  and  then  the  old  man  went  down  the 
gangway. 

"Any  more  for  the  shore?"  the  sailor  shouted,  unloos- 
ing the  rope  that  held  the  gangway  fast  to  the  ship.  Then 
the  gangway  was  cast  off.  A  bell  rang,  and  in  an  instant 
the  sound  of  the  screws  beating  in  the  water  was  heard.  A 
shudder  ran  through  the  boat  as  the  engines  began  to 
move,  and  slowly  the  gap  between  the  ship  and  the  quay 
widened.  Henry  smiled  at  his  father,  and  the  old  man 
blinked  and  smiled  back.  The  passengers  leant  against  the 
side  of  the  boat  and  shouted  farewells  and  messages  to 
their  friends  on  shore.  "Mind  an'  write!"  "Remember 
me  to  every  one,  will  you!"  "Tell  Maggie  I  was  askin' 
for  her ! ' '  Then  hats  were  waved  and  handkerchiefs  were 
floated  like  flags.  ...  A  woman  stood  near  to  Henry  and 
cried  miserably  to  herself.  .  .  .  The  ship  swung  into  the 
middle  of  the  Lagan  and  began  to  move  down  towards  the 
sea.  Henry  could  still  see  his  father,  standing  under  the 
yellow  glare  of  a  large  lamp  hanging  from  the  shed.  He 
had  taken  off  his  hat,  and  was  waving  it  to  his  son.  It 
seemed  to  Henry  suddenly  that  the  old  man's  hair  was 
very  grey  and  thin.  .  .  .  He  took  out  his  handkerchief  and 


f 


CHANGING  WINDS  193 

waved  it  vigorously  in  response.     Somewhere  in  the  steer- 
age people  were  singing  a  hymn : 

'Til  we  me  .  .  ee  .  .  eet,  'til  we  me  .  .  eet, 
'Til  we  meet  at  Je  .  e  .  su'a  feet  .  .  .  Jesu's  feet, 
'Til  we  me  .  .  ee  .  .  eet,  'til  we  me  .  .  eet, 
God  be  with  you  'til  we  meet  again! 

The  slurring,  sentimental  sounds  became  extraordinarily 
human  and  moving  in  the  dusky  glow,  and  he  felt  tempted 
to  hum  the  words  under  his  breath  in  harmony  with  the 
singers  in  the  steerage ;  but  two  men  were  standing  behind 
him,  and  he  was  afraid  they  would  overhear  him.  He  could 
hear  one  of  them  saying  to  his  companion,  "I  always  say, 
eat  as  much  as  you  can  stuff  inside  you,  an'  run  the  risk 
of  bein'  sick.  Some  people  makes  a  point  of  eatin'  nothin* 
at  all  when  they're  crossin'  the  Channel,  but  they're  sick 
all  the  same,  an'  they  damn  near  throw  off  their  insides. 
A  drop  of  whiskey  is  a  good  thing!  .  ..." 

The  boat  was  making  way  now,  and  the  people  on  the 
quay  were  ceasing  to  have  separate  outlines:  they  were 
merging  in  a  big,  dark  blur  under  the  yellow  light.  Henry 
could  not  see  his  father  at  the  spot  where  he  had  stood 
when  the  ship  moved  away,  and  he  felt  disappointed  when 
he  thought  to  himself  that  the  old  man  had  not  waited  until 
the  last  moment.  Then  he  saw  a  figure  hurrying  along  the 
quays,  waving  a  large  white  handkerchief.  ...  It  was  his 
father,  trying  to  keep  pace  with  the  boat,  and  Henry 
shouted  to  him  and  waved  his  hands  to  him  in  a  kind  of 
delirium.  Gradually  the  boat  outstripped  the  old  man, 
and  at  last  he  stood  still  and  watched  it  disappearing  into 
the  darkness.  He  was  still  waving  to  Henry,  but  no  sound 
came  from  him.  He  seemed  to  be  terribly  alone  there  on 
the  dark  quay.  .  .  .  Henry  shuddered  in  the  night  air,  and 
glancing  about  him  saw  that  most  of  the  passengers  had 
gone  down  to  the  saloon  or  to  their  cabins.  He,  too,  was 
almost  alone.    He  turned  to  look  again  at  his  father,  strain- 


194  CHANGING  WINDS 

ing  to  catch  the  last  glimpse  of  him,  and  while  he  was 
straining  thus,  he  heard  the  old  man 's  voice  vibrating  across 
the  river  to  him.  '  *  Good-bye  Henry ! "  he  shouted.  * '  God 
bless  you,  son!"  and  Henry  felt  that  he  must  leap  over- 
board and  swim  back  to  the  shore.  He  waved  his  hand- 
kerchief towards  the  place  where  his  father  was  standing 
and  tried  to  shout  ** Good-bye,  father!"  to  him,  but  his 
voice  rattled  weakly  in  his  throat,  and  he  felt  tears  start- 
ing in  his  eyes. 

"It's  silly  of  me  to  behave  like  this,"  he  murmured  to 
himself,  rubbing  his  eyes  with  his  hand. 

The  boat  had  passed  between  the  Twin  Islands  and  was 
now  sailing  swiftly  down  the  Lough  towards  the  Irish  Sea. 
The  lights  on  the  quay  faded  into  a  faint  yellow  blur,  like 
little  lost  stars,  and  presently,  when  the  cold  airs  of  the 
sea  struck  him  sharply,  he  turned  and  went  towards  the 
saloon. 

**I  hope  to  goodness  it'll  be  smooth  all  the  way  over," 
he  said  to  himself. 


THE  THIRD  CHAPTER 
1 

Roger  Carey  and  Gilbert  Farlow  met  him  at  Euston. 

"Hilloa,  Quinny!"  Gilbert  said,  "I've  been  made  a 
dramatic  critic,  and  I  'm  to  do  my  first  play  to-night ! ' ' 

"Hurray!"  he  answered,  and  turned  to  greet  Roger. 

"We've  bagged  a  taxi,"  Gilbert  went  on.  "The  driver 
looks  cheeky  .  .  .  that 's  why  we  hired  him.  We  '11  give 
him  a  tuppenny  tip  and  then  we'll  give  him  in 
charge!  ..." 

"All  taxi  drivers  are  cheeky,"  Roger  interrupted. 

"But  this  is  a  very  cheeky  one!  .  .  .  Hi,  porter!" 

It  was  extraordinarily  good  to  be  with  Gilbert  and  Roger 
again;  extraordinarily  good  to  hear  Gilbert's  exaggerated 
speech  and  see  him  ordering  people  about  without  hurt- 
ing their  feelings ;  extraordinarily  good  to  listen  to  Roger 's 
slow,  unflickering  voice  as  he  stated  the  facts  .  .  .  for 
Roger  had  always  stated  the  facts.  In  all  their  discussions, 
it  was  Roger  who  reminded  them  of  the  essential  things, 
refusing  persistently  to  be  carried  away  by  Gilbert's  imag- 
ination or  Ninian  's  impatience.  People  were  sometimes  ir- 
ritated by  Roger's  slow,  imperturbable  way  of  speaking 
.  .  .  they  called  him  a  prig  .  .  .  but  as  they  knew  him 
better,  they  lost  their  irritation  and  thought  of  him  with 
respect.  "But  we're  all  prigs,"  Gilbert  said  once  in  reply 
to  some  one  who  sneered  at  Roger.  "Ninian  and  Quinny 
and  Roger  and  me,  we're  frightful  prigs.  That's  because 
we're  so  much  brainier  than  most  people.  Of  course, 
Roger  was  Second  Wrangler,  and  that  affects  a  man,  I  sup- 
pose, but  he's  terribly  clever,  young  Roger  is!  .  .  ." 

As  they  drove  home,  Gilbert  told  their  news  to  Henry. 

195 


196  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Ninian's  coming  up  to-morrow  .  .  .  sooner  than  he 
meant  to.  He's  very  keen  on  going  to  Harland  and  Wolff's, 
but  he's  afraid  he's  too  old  to  begin  building  ships.  Tom 
Arthurs  says  he  ought  to  have  gone  straight  to  the  Island 
from  Rumpell's  instead  of  going  to  Cambridge,  and  poor 
old  Ninian  was  horribly  blasphemous  about  it  all.  It's 
funny  to  hear  him  trying  to  talk  like  an  Orangeman  .  .  . 
he  mixes  it  up  with  Devonshire  dialect  .  .  .  and  thinks  he 's 
imitating  Tom  Arthurs.  I  suppose  he'll  have  to  content 
himself  with  building  railways  and  things  like  that.  It 's  a 
great  pity!" 

"I  don't  believe  he  really  wants  to  be  a  shipbuilder," 
Roger  said.  "He  likes  Tom  Arthurs,  and  he  wants  to  be 
what  Arthurs  is.  That's  all.  If  Arthurs  were  a  comedian, 
Ninian  would  want  to  be  a  comedian,  too ! ' ' 

**It  must  be  splendid,"  Henry  murmured,  **to  be  able 
to  influence  people  like  that!" 

The  taxi  drew  up  to  the  door  of  a  house  in  one  of  the 
quieter  Bloomsbury  squares,  and  Henry,  looking  out  of 
the  window,  while  Gilbert  opened  the  door  of  the  cab,  saw 
that  the  garden  in  the  centre  of  the  square  was  very  green. 
He  could  see  figures  in  white  flannels  running  and  jumping, 
and  the  sound  of  tennis  balls,  as  they  collided  with  the 
racquets,  pleased  him. 

"Your  room  overlooks  the  square,"  .Gilbert  said,  as 
Henry  got  out  of  the  cab. 

"Splendid!"  he  replied.  "I  shall  imagine  I'm  in  Dub- 
lin when  I  look  out  of  the  window.  It's  just  like  Merrion 
Square!  ..." 

"Well,  pay  the  cabby,  will  you?  I'm  broke!"  said  Gil- 
bert. 

"You  always  are,"  Roger  murmured. 

2 

Ninian  joined  them  on  the  following  day,  very  cheer- 
less and  irritable.    It  was  impossible  for  him  to  enter  the 


I 


CHANGING  WINDS  197 

shipbuilding  firm  owing  to  his  age,  and  so  he  had  decided  to 
enter  the  offices  of  a  firm  of  engineers  in  London.  "Any- 
body can  build  a  damned  railway,"  he  said,  "but  it  takes 
a  man  to  build  a  ship.  I'd  love  to  build  a  liner  .  .  .  one 
that  could  cross  the  Atlantic  in  four  days ! ' ' 

"Four  days!"  Gilbert  scoffed.  "My  dear  Ninian,  boats 
don 't  crawl  across  the  ocean !  People  want  boats  that  will 
take  them  to  New  York  in  twenty-four  hours !  .  .  . " 

"And  now,  young  fellows!"  he  went  on,  "it's  time  that 
we  thought  seriously  about  our  immortal  souls!" 

"Oh,  is  it?"  said  Ninian. 

"Yes,  it  is,"  Gilbert  replied. 

They  had  dined,  and  were  now  sitting  in  Gilbert's  room 
in  the  lax  attitude  of  people  who  have  eaten  well  and  are 
content. 

"Here  we  are,"  Gilbert  went  on,  using  his  pipe  as  a 
modulator  of  his  points,  "four  bright  lads  simply  bursting 
with  brains,  and  the  question  is,  what  is  to  become  of  us? 
The  Boy:  What  Will  He  Become?  Take  Roger,  for  ex- 
ample, will  he  become  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  or  a 
footling  little  Registrar  of  a  footling  County  Court?  ..." 

"I  haven't  had  a  brief  yet,"  Roger  interrupted,  "so  that 
question's  somewhat  premature,  isn't  it?" 

"I'm  not  talking  about  now  ...  I'm  talking  about  the 
future,"  Gilbert  replied.  "We  ought  to  have  some  notion 
of  what  we're  going  to  do  with  our  lives.  ...  As  a  matter 
of  fact,"  he  continued,  "your  career's  fairly  certain,  Roger. 
With  all  that  brain  oozing  out  of  you,  you're  bound  to  be- 
come great.  But  what  about  little  Ninian  here?  And 
Quinny  ?  And  me  ?  Ninian 's  a  discontented  sort  of  bloke, 
and  he's  quite  likely  to  make  a  mess  of  things  unless  we 
look  after  him.  He  may  turn  out  to  be  a  very  great  engi- 
neer or  he  may  go  back  to  Boveyhayne  and  play  the  turnip- 
headed  squire !  .  .  . " 

"Always  rotting  a  chap,"  Ninian  mumbled. 

"And  Quinny  .  .  .  what  about  little  Quinny?  He's 
written  a  novel!  ..." 


198  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Written  a  what?"  Ninian  demanded,  sitting  up  sharply. 

"Have  you,  Quinny?"  said  Roger. 

Henry  blushed  and  nodded  his  head.  "It  isn't  good," 
he  said.    "I  shall  have  to  re- write  it!" 

"My  Lord,"  said  Ninian,  "fancy  one  of  us  writing  a 
book!" 

Gilbert  slapped  him  on  the  side  of  the  head.  * '  You  for- 
get, Ninian,  that  I've  written  a  play!  ..." 

"A  play's  not  a  book!  .  .  ." 

''My  plays  are  books,"  Gilbert  retorted.  "Well,  now," 
he  went  on,  "what's  to  become  of  little  Quinny:  a  tip-top 
novelist  with  a  limited  circulation  or  a  third-rater  who  sells 
millions  ? ' ' 

"What  about  yourself?"  Ninian  said. 

"I'm  coming  to  myself.  Will  I  become  a  great  dram- 
atist, like  Shakespeare  and  Bernard  Shaw  and  all  those 
chaps,  or  merely  turn  out  hack  plays  ?  .  .  . " 

*  *  And  the  answer  is  ? " 

"I  don't  know,  but  I'll  tell  you  in  ten  years'  time. 
We're  a  brainy  lot  of  lads,  and  I'm  the  brainiest  of  the 
lot!  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  no,  you're  not,"  said  Ninian.  "I've  quite  a  re- 
spectable amount  of  brain  myself,  but  the  very  best  brain 
in  the  room  belongs  to  Roger.    Doesn't  it,  Roger?" 

"I  don't  despise  my  brain,  Ninian!"  Roger  answered. 

*  *  Observe  the  modest  demeanour  of  the  truly  great  man, ' ' 
Gilbert  exclaimed.  "You'll  have  to  go  into  politics,  Roger. 
It  isn  't  any  good  being  a  barrister  unless  you  do ! " 

"I've  thought  of  that,"  Roger  answered.  "At  the  mo- 
ment, I'm  wondering  which  side  I'm  on.  I  might  manage 
to  get  a  seat  as  a  Liberal,  but  I  don't  believe  it  would  be 
of  much  use  to  me  if  I  got  it.  I  think  I  shall  join  the 
Tories!  .  .  ." 

"Are  you  a  Tory?"  Ninian  said,  "I  thought  you  were  a 
Liberal!" 

"No,  I'm  a  barrister.  You  see,"  he  went  on,  as  if  he 
were  arguing  a  case,  "the  Liberal  majority  is  too  big  and 


CHANGING  WINDS  199 

there  are  far  too  many  clever  young  men  in  the  party.  I 
should  only  be  one  of  a  crowd  if  I  went  into  the  House 
now  as  a  Liberal  .  .  .  and  of  course  I'm  not  likely  to  be 
given  a  chance  of  standing  for  a  seat  because  they've  a  lot 
of  people  on  the  list  already.  But  the  Tories  have  hardly 
any  clever  chaps  left.  There's  Balfour  and  there's  Cham- 
berlain .  .  .  and  then  what  is  there?" 

''Nothing!"  said  Gilbert. 

"A  clever  man  of  my  age  has  the  chance  of  a  lifetime 
with  the  Tories  now,"  Roger  continued.  "Look  at  F.  E. 
Robinson  .  .  .  and  he's  only  a  third-rater!" 

Gilbert  told  a  story  of  the  early  days  of  the  Tory  Party 
after  the  General  Election  of  1900  when  the  Tories  had  been 
completely  routed  by  the  Liberals.  "The  Tory  remnant 
was  as  thick-headed  as  it  could  be,"  he  said,  "and  the 
Liberals  were  bursting  with  brains.  Balfour  came  into  the 
House  one  night  .  .  .he'd  just  been  re-elected  .  .  .  and 
he  sat  down  beside  Chamberlain.  They  were  frightfully 
blue.  Balfour  had  a  look  at  the  Liberals,  and  then  he 
turned  to  his  own  back-benches  and  had  a  look  at  the 
Tories.  Of  course,  it  may  not  be  true,  but  they  say  he 
went  pale  with  fright.  He  turned  to  Chamberlain  and 
said,  "My  God,  Joseph!"  and  then  Chamberlain  turned 
and  looked  at  the  Tories  and  said,  "My  God,  Arthur!" 
You  see,  Chamberlain  never  noticed  things  until  Balfour 
pointed  them  out  to  him,  and  then  he  noticed  them  too 
much.  They  went  out  of  the  House  immediately  after- 
wards and  shook  hands  with  each  other,  and  Chamberlain 
said  'Arthur,  we're  the  Opposition!'  And  so  they  were. 
Poor  Balfour  was  awfully  lonely  after  Chamberlain  crocked 
up.  Not  a  soul  on  his  own  side  that  was  fit  to  talk  to! 
It  was  easy  enough  for  F.  E.  Robinson  to  make  a  name  in  a 
crowd  like  that.  And  they  loathe  him,  too.  He's  such  a 
bounder!  But  they  need  a  fellow  to  heave  mud,  so  they 
put  up  with  him.  Roger's  got  more  brains  in  his  little 
finger  than  that  fellow  has  in  his  whole  body.  Haven't 
you,  Roger?" 


200  CHANGING  WINDS 

"People  don't  have  brains  in  their  little  fingers,"  Roger 
answered. 

"You  should  join  the  Tories,  Roger,"  Ninian  said. 
"There  really  isn't  much  difference  between  them.  My 
father  was  a  Conservative,  but  my  Uncle  Geoffrey  was  a 
Liberal.  When  father  was  in,  uncle  was  out.  It  amounted 
to  the  same  thing  in  the  end!  ..." 

"But  Roger  ought  to  be  a  different  sort  of  Tory!"  Gil- 
bert exclaimed.  "It's  no  good  having  all  his  brain  if 
he's  just  going  to  peddle  around  with  the  same  old 
stuff.  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  intend  to  do  that,"  said  Roger. 

"Well,  what  do  you  intend  to  do?" 

Ninian  seized  a  cushion  and  put  it  behind  his  back. 

"Let's  have  a  good  old  argle-bargle, "  he  said.  "What 
do  you  say,  Quinny?" 

Henry,  who  had  not  joined  in  the  discussion,  leant  for- 
ward and  smiled.  "Oh,  I  like  listening  to  you,"  he  an- 
swered.    "You're  all  so  sure  of  yourselves!  ..." 

Gilbert  turned  on  him.  "Well,  aren't  you  sure  of  your- 
self?" he  demanded. 

"No,  I'm  not,"  Henry  answered.     "I  never  am!" 

"That's  queer,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Damned  queer,"  said  Ninian. 

"Why  are  you  so  uncertain  of  yourself?"  Roger  asked. 

"Don't  you  feel  sure  that  you'll  be  a  great  novelist?" 
Gilbert  added  before  Henry  had  time  to  reply  to  Roger's 
question. 

"I  know  jolly  well  I  shall  be  a  clinking  good  engineer!" 
Ninian  said. 

Henry  had  a  shy  unwillingness  to  discuss  himself  in  front 
of  the  others,  although  they  were  his  closest  friends.  He 
felt  that  he  could  not  sit  still  while  they  watched  him  as 
he  told  them  of  his  ambitions  and  his  fears. 

"Oh,  don't  let's  talk  about  me,"  he  said.  "Go  on  with 
your  argle-bargle."  He  was  speaking  hurriedly,  so  that 
he  had  difficulty  in  articulating  his  words.    "You  were 


CHANGING  WINDS  201 

saying  something,  Ninian,  weren't  you  ...  no,  it  was  you, 
Roger,  about  politics!  ..." 

"Oh,  yes!"  Roger  answered. 

"Rum  chap,  you  are!"  Gilbert  said  to  Henry  in  a  low 
voice. 


"You  see,"  said  Roger,  "my  notion  is  to  restore  the 
prestige  of  the  Tories.  Somehow,  they've  let  themselves 
get  the  reputation  of  being  consciously  heartless.  The 
Liberals  go  about  proclaiming  that  they  are  the  friends 
of  the  poor,  and  the  inference  is  that  the  Tories  are  the 
friends  of  the  rich!" 

"So  they  are,"  said  Ninian. 

'  *  So  are  the  Liberals ! ' '  said  Roger. 

"So's  everybody!"  said  Gilbert. 

"But  the  Tories  aren't  culpably  the  friends  of  the  rich," 
Roger  continued.  "I  mean,  they  don't  go  into  parliament 
with  the  intention  of  exploiting  poor  men  for  the  benefit 
of  rich  men.  It  isn't  true  that  they  are  indifferent  to  the 
fate  of  poor  men;  but  they  have  allowed  the  Liberals  to 
give  them  that  character.  I've  always  said  that  the  Tories 
have  the  courage  of  the  Liberals '  convictions !  .  .  . " 

Gilbert  lay  back  on  the  floor  with  his  arms  under  his 
head.  "I  remember  the  first  time  you  said  that.  It  was 
in  the  Union!"  he  exclaimed. 

"I  shall  say  it  again  in  the  House  some  day,"  Roger 
retorted.  "I 'm  not  trying  to  be  funny  when  I  say  that.  I 
think  the  history  of  the  Tory  Party  shows  very  plainly 
that  the  Tories  have  done  very  admirable  things  for  the 
working-people:  Factory  Acts  and  Housing  schemes  and 
Workmen's  Compensation  Acts.  Well,  I  want  the  Tory 
Party  to  remember  that  it  is  the  custodian  of  the  decency 
of  England.  It  isn't  decent  that  there  should  be  hungry 
children  and  unemployed  men  and  badly-housed  families. 
That  kind  of  thing  is  intolerable  to  a  gentleman,  and  a 


202  CHANGING  WINDS 

Tory  is  a  gentleman.  It  seems  to  me  inconceivable  that 
a  Tory  should  be  willing  to  make  money  by  cheating  a 
child  out  of  a  meal  .  .  .  but  there  are  plenty  of  Liberals 
who  do  that.  And  I'm  against  all  this  legislation  which 
makes  some  public  authority  do  things  for  people  which 
they  ought  to  be  doing  for  themselves.  I  mean,  I  hate  the 
notion  of  the  State  feeding  hungry  school-children  because 
the  parents  cannot  afford  to  feed  them,  when  the  proper 
thing  to  do  is  to  see  that  the  parents  are  paid  enough  for 
their  work  to  enable  them  to  feed  their  children  themselves. 
I  suppose  I'm  sloppy  .  .  .  the  Fabians  used  to  say  so  at 
Cambridge  .  .  .  but  I  prefer  the  spectacle  of  a  family 
round  its  own  table  to  the  spectacle  of  a  crowd  of  assorted 
youngsters  round  a  municipal  school  table!  And  I  don't 
think  we  're  getting  the  most  out  of  our  people !  Just  think 
of  the  millions  of  men  and  women  in  this  country  who 
really  do  not  earn  more  than  their  keep!  That  isn't  good 
enough.  If  you  can  only  just  keep  yourself  going,  then 
you've  no  right  to  go  .  .  .  except  to  hell  as  quickly  as 
possible.  My  idea  is  that  we  waste  potentialities  at  present, 
not  by  squandering  them,  but  by  never  using  them.  All 
those  poor  people,  for  example,  how  do  we  know  that  some 
of  them,  if  given  an  opportunity,  would  not  be  amazingly 
worth  while!  There  must  be  a  great  deal  of  brain-power 
simply  chucked  away  or  misused.  I  know  that  lots  of  peo- 
ple believe  that  men  of  genius  work  their  way  up  to  their 
level  no  matter  how  low  down  they  begin,  but  I  doubt  that, 
and  anyhow  I'm  not  talking  of  geniuses  ...  I'm  talking 
of  the  average  clever  man  .  .  .  there  must  be  men  of  good 
average  quality  lost  in  slums  because  none  of  us  have  taken 
the  trouble  to  clear  the  ground  for  them.  And  the  ground 
has  to  be  cleared!  You  can't  grow  wheat  on  a  sour  soil. 
I  often  think  when  I  see  some  hooligan  brought  into  Court 
that,  given  a  real  chance,  he  might  have  been  a  better  judge 
than  the  man  who  sends  him  to  gaol.  The  Tory's  job  is 
to  restore  the  balance  of  things.     It  isn't  only  to  maintain 


CHANGING  WINDS  203 

the  level,  but  to  raise  it  and  to  keep  on  raising  it.  ...  I 
believe  in  the  State  of  Poise,  of  equitable  adjustment,  in 
which  every  man  will  be  able  to  move  easily  to  his  proper 
place.  .  .  .  There  are  so  many  obstacles  now  in  the  way 
of  man  finding  his  place  that,  even  if  he  has  the  strength 
to  get  over  them,  he  probably  won't  have  the  strength  to 
fill  it.  .  .  ." 

"My  view,  perhaps,  is  narrower  than  yours,  Roger," 
Henry  said,  "but  I  see  all  these  people  chiefly  as  men  and 
women  who  are  shut  out  of  things :  books  and  pictures  and 
plays  and  music  and  all  the  decent  things.  I  don't  believe 
;;hat  if  they  had  the  chance  they  would  all  read  Meredith 
and  admire  Whistler  and  go  to  see  Shaw's  plays  and  want 
to  listen  to  Wagner  .  .  .  that's  not  the  point,  and  anyhow 
the  middle  and  the  upper  classes  are  not  all  marvellously 
cultured.  ]\Iy  point  is  that  their  lives  are  such  that  they 
don't  even  know  of  Meredith  and  Whistler  and  Shaw  and 
Wagner.  They  don't  even  know  of  the  second-rate  people 
or  the  third  rate.  Magnolia,  for  instance  ...  I  suppose 
she  reads  novelettes,  and  when  she  grows  out  of  novel- 
ettes, she  won't  read  anything.  And  she  can't  afford  to 
go  to  a  West  End  theatre.  .  .  .  When  I  think  of  these  peo- 
ple, millions  of  'em,  I  think  of  them  as  people  like  Mag- 
nolia,  completely  shut  out  of  things  like  that,  not  even 
aware  of  them.  ..." 

They  spent  the  remainder  of  the  evening  in  argument, 
their  talk  ranging  over  the  wide  field  of  human  activity. 
They  established  a  system  of  continual  criticism  of  existing 
institutions.  "Challenge  everything,"  said  Gilbert; 
* '  make  it  justify  its  existence. ' '  They  tried  to  discover  the 
truth  about  things,  to  shed  their  prejudices  and  to  see  the 
facts  of  life  exactly  as  they  were.  "The  great  thing  is  to 
get  rid  of  Slop!"  said  Roger.  "We've  got  to  convince  the 
judge  as  well  as  move  the  jury.  It  isn't  enough  to  make 
the  jury  feel  sloppy  .  .  .  any  ass  can  do  that.  You've 
got  to  convince  the  old  chap  on  the  bench  or  you  won't  get 


204  CHANGING  WINDS 

a  verdict.  That's  my  belief,  and  I  believe,  too,  that  the 
jury  is  more  likely  to  listen  to  reason  than  people  im- 
agine!" 

They  did  not  finish  their  argument  that  evening  nor  on 
any  particular  evening.  They  were  spread  over  a  long 
period,  and  were  part  of  the  process  of  clearing  their 
minds  of  cobwebs. 

Gilbert  had  dedicated  his  life  to  the  renascence  of  the 
drama  and  had  written  a  couple  of  plays  which,  he  ad- 
mitted to  his  friends,  had  not  got  the  right  stuff  in  them. 
**I  don't  know  enough  yet,"  he  said  once  to  Henry,  "but 
I'm  learning.  ..."  His  dramatic  criticism  was  very 
pointed,  and  he  speedily  acquired  a  reputation  among  peo- 
ple who  are  interested  in  the  theatre,  as  an  acute  but  harsh 
critic,  and  already  attempts  had  been  made  by  theatrical 
managers  either  to  bribe  him  or  get  him  dismissed  from 
his  paper.  The  bribing  process  was  quite  delicately  oper- 
ated. One  manager  wrote  to  him,  charmingly  plaintive 
about  his  criticism,  and  invited  him  to  put  himself  in  the 
manager's  place.  "I  assure  you,"  he  wrote,  "I  would 
willingly  produce  good  work  if  I  could  get  it,  but  I  can't. 
Come  and  see  me,  and  I'll  show  you  a  pile  of  plays  that 
have  arrived  within  the  last  fortnight.  I  know  quite  well, 
without  reading  them,  that  not  one  of  them  will  be  of  the 
slightest  worth!"  And  Gilbert  had  gone  to  see  him,  and 
had  been  received  very  charmingly  and  told  how  clever  he 
was,  and  then  the  manager  had  offered  to  appoint  him 
reader  of  plays  at  a  pleasant  fee !  .  .  .  Following  that  at- 
tempt at  bribery  came  the  anger  of  an  actor-knight  who 
declined  to  admit  Gilbert  to  his  theatre,  a  piece  of  petu- 
lance which  delighted  him. 

"The  great  big  balloon,"  he  said  to  his  editor  when  he 
was  told  of  what  the  actor-knight  had  said  over  the  tele- 
phone. "My  Lord,  when  I  hear  him  spouting  blank  verse 
through  his  nose!  ..." 

"That's  all  very  fine,"  the  editor  retorted  ruefully, 
"but  your  criticism's  doing  us  a  lot  of  harm.    Jefferson  of 


k 


CHANGING  WINDS  206 

the  Torch  Theatre  cancelled  his  advertisement  the  day 
after  your  notice  of  his  new  play  appeared ! ' ' 

"Ridiculous  ass!"  said  Gilbert. 

"Well,  if  you  say  his  play's  the  worst  that's  ever  been 
put  on  any  stage,  what  do  you  expect  him  to  do?  Fall 
on  your  neck  and  say,  'Bless  you,  brother!'?  You  might 
try  to  be  kinder  to  them,  Farlow,  and  do  for  the  love  of 
God  remember  the  advertisement  manager.  If  you  could 
get  the  human  note  in  your  stuff!  ..." 

"The  what?" 

"The  human  note.  I'm  a  great  believer  in  the  human 
note." 

Gilbert  left  the  office  as  quickly  as  he  could  and  went 
home.  He  came  into  the  dining-room  where  the  others 
were  already  seated  at  their  meal. 

"You're  late  again,  Gilbert,"  said  Eoger.  "Hand  over 
your  sixpence ! ' ' 

Roger,  who  was  never  late  for  anything,  had  instituted 
a  system  of  fines  for  those  who  were  late  for  meals.  The 
fine  for  unpunctuality  at  dinner  was  sixpence. 

"I  haven't  got  a  tanner,  damn  it,"  Gilbert  snapped, 
"and  I'm  looking  for  the  human  note.  That's  why 
I'm  late.  My  heavenly  father,  I'm  hungry!  What  is 
there?" 

*  *  Sixpence  for  being  late  for  dinner, ' '  said  Roger  quietly, 
"and  tuppence  for  blasphemy!" 

He  entered  the  amounts  in  the  "Ledger,"  and  then 
returned  to  his  seat.  "You  already  owe  six  and  three- 
pence," he  said,  as  he  sat  down,  "and  this  evening's  fines 
bring  it  up  to  six  and  elevenpence.  You  ought  to  pay  some- 
thing on  account,  Gilbert!  ..." 

"Pass  the  potatoes  and  don't  bleat  so  much!"  said  Gil- 
bert. "Look  here,  Quinny,"  he  said  as  he  helped  himself 
to  the  potatoes,  "what's  the  human  note,  and  don't  you 
think  tuppence  is  too  much  for  blasphemy?" 

"Ask  Ninian,"  Henry  answered.  "He  knows  all  about 
humanity!" 


206  CHANGING  WINDS 

'  *  No,  he  doesn  't.  Bally  mechanic !  Aren  't  you,  Ninian  ? 
Aren't  you  a  damn  little  mechanic  with  a  screw-driver  for 
a  soul!  .  .  ." 

"You'll  get  a  punch  on  the  jaw  in  a  minute,  young  fel- 
low me  lad ! ' '  Ninian  exclaimed,  leaning  over  the  table  and 
slapping  Gilbert  on  the  cheek. 

"Fined  fourpence  for  threat  of  physical  violence  and 
ninepence  for  executing  the  same,"  Roger  murmured. 
"I'll  enter  it  presently." 

"Somebody  should  slay  Roger,"  Gilbert  said.  "Some- 
body should  take  hold  of  his  neat  little  neck  and  wring 
it!  .  .  ." 

They  finished  their  meal  and  sat  back  in  their  chairs, 
smoking  and  chattering. 

"What's  all  this  about  the  human  note,  Gilbert?"  Henry 
asked,  and  Gilbert  explained  what  had  happened  to  him 
in  the  editor's  room.  "I  stopped  a  bobby  in  the  Strand 
and  asked  him  about  it,"  he  said,  "but  he  told  me  to  move 
on.  You  ought  to  know  what  the  human  note  is,  Quinny. 
You're  a  novelist,  and  novelists  are  supposed  to  know 
everything  nowadays ! ' ' 

He  did  not  wait  for  Henry  to  explain  the  meaning  of 
the  human  note.  "I  know  what  Dilton  means  by  it,"  he 
said.  "When  he  talks  of  the  human  note  he  means  the 
greasy  touch  I ' ' 

"Slop  in  fact!"  said  Roger. 

"That's  it.  Slop!  My  God,  these  journalists  do  love 
to  splash  about  in  their  emotions.  They  can't  mention  the 
North  Pole  without  gulping  in  their  throats.  Dilton  gave 
me  an  example  of  the  human  note.  There  was  a  bye-elec- 
tion in  the  East  End  the  other  day  and  one  of  the  candi- 
dates put  his  unfortunate  infants  into  'pearlies'  and 
hawked  them  about  the  constituency  in  a  costermonger's 
barrow,  carrying  a  notice  with  'Vote  for  Our  Daddy!' 
on  it.  Dilton  damned  near  blubbed  when  he  told  me  about 
it!" 

"Rage?"  said  Henry. 


CHANGING  WINDS  807 

"Rage!"  Gilbert  exclaimed.  "Good  Lord,  no!  The 
man  was  moved,  touched !  .  .  .  He  blew  his  nose  hard,  and 
then  told  me  that  one  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole 
world  kin !  I 'm  damned  if  he  didn't  write  a  leading  article 
about  it  .  .  .  and  they  give  him  a  couple  of  thousand  a 
year  for  organising  sniffs  for  the  million.  All  over  Eng- 
gland,  I  suppose  there  were  people  snivelling  over  those 
brats  and  telling  each  other  that  one  touch  of  nature  makes 
the  whole  world  kin!  .  .  .  Oof!  gimme  the  whisky,  some- 
body, for  the  love  of  the  Lordy  God!  I  want  to  be  sick 
when  I  think  of  the  human  note ! ' ' 

"Well,  of  course,"  said  Roger,  "the  slop  is  there,  and 
it's  no  good  getting  angry  about  it.  "What  I  want  is  a 
Party  that  won't  deal  in  it.  I've  always  believed  that  the 
mob  likes  an  honest  man,  even  if  it  does  call  him  a  Prig, 
and  I'm  perfectly  certain  that  when  a  Prig  gets  let  down 
by  the  mob  it's  because  in  some  subconscious  way  it  knows 
he's  only  pretending  to  be  honest  .  .  .  unless,  of  course, 
it 's  gone  off  its  head  with  passion  of  some  sort :  Boer  war 
jingoism  and  that  kind  of  thing.  And  my  notion  of  a  mem- 
ber of  parliament  is  a  man  who  represents  some  degree  of 
general  feeling.  If  he  doesn't  represent  that  general  feel- 
ing he  can  only  do  one  of  two  things:  try  to  convert  the 
general  opinion  to  his  point  of  view  or  else,  if  he  can't 
convert  it,  tell  it  he'll  be  damned  if  he'll  represent  it 
any  longer.  That's  the  attitude  I  shall  adopt  in  the 
House!  .  .  ." 

But  Gilbert  thought  that  this  was  a  dangerous  attitude 
to  maintain. 

* '  If  you  maintain  it  too  long,  you  '11  never  get  an  office, ' ' 
he  said,  "and  so  the  only  work  you'll  be  able  to  do  will 
be  critical  work:  you'll  never  get  a  chance  to  do  anything 
constructive;  and  if  you  let  the  Government  nobble  you, 
and  give  you  an  Under  Secretaryship  the  moment  they  see 
you  getting  dangerous,  then  you're  done  for.  And  any- 
how, I  don 't  believe  in  independent  members  of  parliament. 
A  certain  number  of  sheep  are  necessary  in  every  organi- 


208  CHANGING  WINDS 

sation,  in  parliament  as  much  as  anywhere  else.  It  would 
be  absolutely  impossible  to  carry  on  Government  if  the 
whole  six  hundred  and  seventy  members  of  parliament  were 
as  clever  and  as  independent  as  Lord  Hugh  Cecil.  You 
must  have  sheep  and  lots  of  'em!  ..." 

"But  they  needn't  be  dead  sheep,"  said  Roger.  "They 
needn't  be  mutton,  need  they?" 

"No,  they  needn't  be  mutton,  but  tfiey  must  be  sheep," 
Gilbert  replied. 

"All  the  politicians  I've  ever  met,"  said  Ninian,  "were 
like  New  Zealand  lamb  .  .  .  frozen ! ' ' 

Gilbert  leaped  on  him  and  slapped  his  back,  capsizing 
him  on  to  the  floor.  "Ninian,  my  son,"  he  said,  "that's 
a  good  line.  Do  you  mind  if  I  put  it  in  my  comedy.  It 
doesn't  matter  whether  you  do  or  not,  but  I'd  like  your 
consent. ' ' 

"Don't  be  an  old  ass,"  said  Ninian. 

"Can  I  use  that  line  about  the  New  Zealand  lamb?  ..." 

"Yes,  yes  .  .  .  any  damn  thing  .  .  .  only  get  off  my 
chest!  You're  .  .  .  you're  squeezing  the  inside  out  of  me. 
Get  up,  will  you!  ..." 

"I'm  really  quite  comfortable,  thanks,  Ninian.  If  it 
weren't  for  this  whacking  big  bone  here!  ..." 

He  did  not  complete  the  sentence,  for  Ninian,  with  a 
heaving  effort,  threw  him  on  to  the  floor,  where  they 
scrambled  and  punched  each  other.  .  .  . 

"There  is  a  fine  of  eighteenpence, "  said  Roger,  "for 
disorderly  conduct.  I'll  just  enter  it  against  you 
both!" 

The  combatants  rose  and  routed  Roger,  and  when  they 
had  disposed  of  him,  Ninian  agreed  to  let  Gilbert  use  his 
line  about  the  frozen  meat.  "I  shall  expect  you  to  put  a 
note  in  the  programme  that  the  epigram  in  the  second  act 
was  supplied  by  Mr.  Ninian  Graham,"  he  said. 

''The  epigram!"  Gilbert  exclaimed.    ''The  epigram!" 

"Why,  will  there  be  any  more?"  said  Ninian  innocently. 

Hostilities  thereupon  broke  out  again. 


CHANGING  WINDS  «09 


They  sat  up  late  that  night  talking  of  themselves  and 
of  England  and  public  affairs.  Roger  was  interested  in 
Trade  Unions,  and  he  lamented  the  fact  that  the  Tories  had 
allowed  an  alliance  to  be  formed  between  Labour  and 
Liberalism.  "Ask  any  workman  you  meet  in  the  street 
whether  he'd  rather  work  for  a  Liberal  or  a  Tory,  and  I 
bet  you  what  you  like,  the  chances  are  that  he'll  plump  for 
the  Tory.  His  experience  is  that  the  Tory's  the  better 
employer,  and  the  reason  why  that's  so  is  that  the  Liberal 
conducts  his  business  on  principles,  whereas  the  Tory  con- 
ducts his  on  instincts.  In  principle,  the  Liberal  concedes 
most  things  to  the  workman,  but  in  practice  he  doesn't: 
in  principle,  the  Tory  concedes  nothing  to  the  workman, 
but  in  practice  he  treats  him  decently.  The  workman 
knows  that,  but  the  fool  goes  and  votes  for  the  Liberal, 
and  the  fool  of  a  Tory  lets  him !  .  .  .  You  know, ' '  he  went 
on,  *  *  this  Trade  Union  movement  has  got  on  to  wrong  lines 
altogether.  Their  chief  function  seems  to  be  to  protect 
their  members  from  .  .  .  well,  from  being  cheated.  That's 
what  it  comes  to.  I  don't  blame  'em.  They've  had  to 
behave  like  that.  I  don't  think  any  one  can  read  Webb's 
'Industrial  Democracy'  and  'The  History  of  Trade  Un- 
ionism' without  feeling  that,  on  the  whole,  employers  have 
been  rather  caddish  to  workmen  ...  so  I  don't  blame  the 
Unions  for  making  so  much  fuss  about  their  rights.  But 
I'd  like  to  see  them  making  as  much  fuss  about  the  quality 
of  the  work  done  by  their  members.  That 's  their  real  func- 
tion. It  isn't  enough  to  keep  up  the  standard  of  wages 
and  of  conditions  of  employment — they  ought  also  to  keep 
m      up  the  standard  of  work!" 

■         This  led  them  into  a  wrangle  about  the  responsibility 
K     for  the  blame  for  this  indifference  to  quality  of  work. 
K        "I  suppose,"  said  Roger,  "employers  and  employed  are 
K    to  blame.     I  think  myself  it's  the  result  of  a  world  tend- 


210  CHANGING  WINDS 

as  possible  without  regard  to  the  quality  of  it.  I  suppose 
a  modern  contractor  would  break  his  heart  if  he  were 
asked  to  spend  his  lifetime  on  one  cathedral  .  .  .  but  peo- 
ple were  proud  to  do  that  in  the  Middle  Ages.  We  'd  build 
half  a  dozen  cathedrals  while  a  Middle  Ages  man  was  dec- 
orating a  gargoyle!" 

'  *  Well,  we  have  this  comfort, ' '  said  Ninian,  * '  the  modern 
builder's  stuff  won't  last  as  long  as  Westminster  Abbey!" 

"I  hate  all  this  bleat  about  the  Middle  Ages,"  Gilbert 
exclaimed.  "I'm  surprised  to  hear  you,  Roger,  talking 
like  that  fat  papist,  Belloc.  One  'ud  think  to  hear  you  talk- 
ing that  no  one  ever  did  shoddy  work  until  the  nineteenth 
century,  but  Christopher  Wren  let  a  lot  of  shoddy  stuff 
into  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  There  were  fraudulent  con- 
tractors then,  and  jerry-builders,  just  as  there  are  now,  and 
there  probably  always  will  be  people  who  give  a  bad 
return  for  their  wages!  ..." 

"That's  why  I  want  to  see  the  Tory  Party  resuscitated," 
said  Roger.  "I  want  to  limit  the  number  of  such  people 
and  to  make  every  man  feel  that  it's  a  gentlemanly  thing  to 
do  your  best,  whatever  your  job  is,  and  that  payment  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  way  you  do  your  work ! ' ' 

The  whole  industrial  system  would  need  re-shaping,  the 
whole  social  system  would  need  re-shaping,  the  Empire 
would  need  re-shaping. 

"This  craving  for  cheapness  has  cheapened  nothing  but 
life,"  said  Roger,  "and  it  brings  incalculable  trouble  with 
it.  I  mean,  a  ha'penny  saved  now  means  pounds  lost  later. 
Oh,  that's  a  platitude,  I  know,  but  we  pay  no  heed  to 
it.  I've  never  been  to  America,  but  we  know  quite  well 
that  one  of  the  most  serious  problems  for  the  Americans 
is  the  negro  problem.  I  heard  a  Rhodes  scholar  talking 
about  it  once.  He  simply  foamed  at  the  mouth.  He 
hadn't  any  plan  for  it  .  .  .  didn't  seem  to  realise  that 
a  plan  could  be  made  .  .  .  and  you  know  they've  only  got 
that  problem  through  the  greediness  of  their  ancestors. 
Negroes  aren't  native  to  America.    The  planters  wanted 


CHANGING  WINDS  211 

cheap  labour  and  so  they  imported  them  .  .  .  and  the 
end  of  that  business  is  the  Negro  Problem ! ' ' 

"And  lynchiugs  and  a  Civil  War  in  between,"  Henry 
murmured.  ''That's  the  most  hateful  part  of  it  .  .  .  the 
killing  and  the  bitterness." 

' '  Great  Scott ! ' '  said  Ninian,  ' '  think  of  all  those  Yankees 
killing  each  other  so  that  niggers  might  wear  spats  and  top 
hats  and  sing  coon  songs  in  the  music  halls!  .  .  .  Damn 
silly,  I  call  it!" 

"We've  got  to  make  people  believe  that  it  isn't  what 
you  get  that  matters,  but  what  you  do,"  Roger  went  on. 
"All  this  footling  squabble  between  workmen  and  em- 
ployers about  a  farthing  an  hour  more  or  a  farthing  an 
hour  less  .  .  .  isn't  decent  ...  it  isn't  gentlemanly.  Oh, 
I  know  very  well  that  the  counter-jumper  thinks  it's  very 
clever  to  trick  a  customer  out  of  a  ha'penny  .  .  .  but  it 
doesn't  last,  that  kind  of  profit.  We  lost  America  because 
we  behaved  like  cads  to  the  colonists,  and  we'll  lose  every- 
thing if  we  continue  to  play  the  counter-jumper  trick.  It 
isn't  very  popular  now  to  talk  about  gentlemen  .  ,  .  people 
sneer  at  the  word  .  .  .  but  I'd  rather  die  like  a  gentleman 
than  live  like  a  cad  .  .  .  and  that 's  the  spirit  I  want  to  see 
restored  to  the  Tory  Party.  It's  awfully  needed  in  Eng- 
land now!" 

They  began  to  lay  plans  for  an  Improved  Tory  Party 
that  included  an  alliance  with  Labour  and  a  closer  confed- 
eration of  the  colonies,  together  with  a  definite  understand- 
ing with  America. 

"And  what  about  Ireland?"  said  Henry. 

"Oh,  of  course,  Ireland  must  have  Home  Rule  and  be 
treated  like  a  colony.  Nobody  but  a  fool  wants  to  treat  it 
in  any  other  way!"  said  Roger. 

"There  are  an  awful  lot  of  fools  in  the  world,"  Gilbert 
said. 

"I  know  that,"  Roger  retorted,  "but  need  we  trouble 
about  them?" 

"We've  got  to  get  a  group  of  fellows  together  on  much 


212  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  same  principle  as  the  Fabian  Society  ...  no  one  to 
be  admitted  unless  he  has  brains  and  is  willing  to  work 
without  payment.  Look  at  the  work  that  Sidney  Webb 
and  Bernard  Shaw  and  all  those  people  did  for  Socialism 
for  nothing,  even  paying  for  it  out  of  their  own  pockets 
when  they  weren't  over-flush  .  .  .  my  goodness,  if  we  can 
only  get  people  with  that  kind  of  spirit  into  our  group, 
we'll  mould  the  world!  By  the  way,  we  ought  to  pinch 
some  ideas  from  the  Fabians!  "We  could  meet  somewhere 
.  .  .  here,  to  begin  with.  And  when  we've  got  a  group  of 
fellows  together  with  some  notion  of  what  we  all  want  to 
do,  we  can  start  inviting  eminent  ones  to  talk  to  us  .  .  . 
and  heckle  the  stuffing  out  of  them ! ' ' 

Gilbert  was  able  to  tell  them  a  great  deal  about  the 
origin  of  the  Fabian  Society  .  .  .  for  his  father  was  one 
of  the  founders  of  it  .  .  .  and  he  told  them  how  the  Society 
had  invited  Mr.  Haldane  to  talk  to  them  .  .  .  and  of  the 
way  in  which  they  had  fallen  on  him  in  the  discussion  and 
left  all  his  arguments  in  shreds  when  the  meeting 
ended.  .  .  .  "If  we  can  get  Balfour  or  Asquith  or  some 
other  Eminent  Pot  here,"  he  said,  "and  simply  argue 
hell's  blazes  out  of  him  .  .  .  my  Lordy  God,  that  'ud  be 
great!" 

"They're  not  likely  to  come,"  said  Ninian. 

"I  don't  know.  Eminent  Ones  sometimes  do  the  most 
unusual  things!" 

Ninian  yawned  and  stretched  his  arms.  "I  move  that 
this  House  be  now  adjourned!"  he  said. 

But  they  ignored  his  sleepiness,  and  he  would  not  move 
away  from  their  company. 

"Well,  we've  settled  what  our  future  is  to  be,"  said  Gil- 
bert. 

'  *  What  is  it  to  be  ? "  Ninian  interrupted,  stifling  another 
yawn. 

"Weren't  you  listening?  We're  to  be  Improved  Tories 
.  .  .  and  we're  to  improve  the  Universe,  so  to  speak. 
We've  just  settled  it.    All  the  Old  Birds  are  to  be  hoofed 


CHANGING  WINDS  213 

out  of  office,  and  we're  to  take  their  places,  and  I  thor- 
oughly approve  of  that.  In  my  opinion,  any  man  who 
wants  to  occupy  a  place  of  authority  after  the  age  of 
sixty  should  be  publicly  and  cruelly  pole-axed.  I  can't 
stand  old  men  .  .  .  they're  so  cowardly  and  so  obstinate 
and  so  conceited!" 

"The  great  thing,"  said  Roger,  "is  to  keep  ourselves 
from  sloppiness.    We  mustn't  make  fools  of  ourselves!" 

"The  principal  way  in  which  a  man  makes  a  fool  of 
himself,"  Gilbert  added,  "is  in  connexion  with  the  female 
species.  Is  that  what  you  mean,  Roger?"  Roger  nodded 
his  head.  "Pay  attention  to  that,  Ninian,"  Gilbert  went 
on.     ' '  You  have  a  weakness  for  females,  I  've  noticed ! ' ' 

Ninian,  suddenly  forgetting  his  fatigue,  sat  up  in  his 
seat.     "I  say,  let's  jaw  about  women,"  he  said. 

"No,"  Gilbert  replied.  "We  won't  ...  not  at  this 
hour  of  the  morning ! ' '  But,  disregarding  his  decision,  he 
went  on,  "My  view  of  women  is  that  we  all  make  too 
much  fuss  about  'era!  Either  we  damn  them  excessively 
or  M^e  praise  them  excessively.  They're  a  cursed  nuisance 
in  literature.  All  the  writers  seem  to  think  that  man 
was  made  for  woman  or  woman  for  man,  and  they  write 
and  write  about  sex  and  love  as  if  there  weren't  other  things 
in  the  world  besides  women ! ' ' 

"  I  'd  like  to  know  what  else  we  were  made  for  ? ' '  Henry 
said. 

"We  were  made  to  do  our  jobs,"  Roger  answered.  "I 
believe  in  what  I  may  call  the  modified  anchorite  .  .  . 
women  are  too  emotional  and  get  between  a  man  and  his 
work.  Love  is  an  excellent  thing  .  .  .  excellent  .  .  .  but 
there  are  other  things!  ..." 

"What  else  is  there?"  Henry  demanded  almost  crossly. 
He  felt  vaguely  stirred  by  what  was  being  said,  vaguely 
antagonistic  to  it. 

"Oh,  lots  of  things,"  Roger  answered.  "Fighting  for 
your  place,  moving  multitudes  to  do  your  will  .  .  .  oh,  lots 
of  things!" 


214  CHANGING  WINDS 

Gilbert  had  read  some  of  Henry's  novel,  and  he  now 
began  to  talk  about  it. 

"You  turn  on  the  Slop-tap  too  often,"  he  said. 
**Quinny,  my  son,  you're  a  clever  little  chap,  but  you're 
frightfully  sloppy.  I've  read  a  lot  more  of  your 
novel.  .  .  .'* 

'  *  Yes  ? ' '  said  Henry,  nervously  anxious  to  hear  his  crit- 
icism. 

"Slop!"  Gilbert  continued.  "Just  slop,  Quinny! 
Women  aren't  like  lumps  of  dough  that  a  baker  punches 
into  any  shape  he  likes,  and  they  aren't  sticks  of  barley 
sugar.  ..." 

"No,  they  aren't,"  Roger  interrupted.     "Wait  till  you     1 
see  my  cousin  Rachel.  ..."  ' 

"Have  you  got  a  cousin,  Roger?  How  damned  odd!" 
said  Gilbert. 

"Yes.  I  must  bring  her  round  here  one  evening.  She's 
not  a  bad  female  .  .  .  quite  intelligent  for  her  sex.  Go 
on!" 

"They're  like  us,  Quinny!"  Gilbert  continued. 
"They're  good  in  parts  and  bad  in  parts.  That's  the  vital 
discovery  of  the  twentieth  century,  and  I've  made  it !  .  .  ." 

Henry  had  been  eager  to  hear  Gilbert's  criticism  of 
his  novel,  but  this  kind  of  talk  irritated  him,  though  he 
could  not  understand  why  it  irritated  him,  and  his  irri- 
tation drove  him  to  sneers. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said,  "you  want  to  substitute  Social 
Reform  and  Improved  Toryism  for  Romance.  Lordy  God, 
man,  do  you  want  to  put  eugenics  and  blue-books  in  place 
of  the  love  of  woman?" 

"You're  getting  cross,  Quinny!  ..." 

"No,  I'm  not!" 

"Oh,  yes,  you  are  .  .  .  very  cross  .  .  .  and  you  know 
what  the  fine  for  it  is.  If  you  want  my  opinion,  here  it  is. 
I  am  prepared  to  accept  eugenics  and  blue-books  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  love  of  women  ...  if  they're  interesting, 


CHANGING  WINDS  215 

of  course.  That's  all  I  ask  of  any  one  or  anything  .  .  . 
that  it  shall  interest  me.  I  don't  care  what  it  is,  so  long 
as  it  doesn't  bore  me.  "Women  bore  me  .  .  .  women  in 
books  and  plays,  I  mean  .  .  .  because  they're  all  of  a  pat- 
tern: lovebirds.  I've  never  seen  a  play  in  which  the 
women  weren't  used  for  sloppy  emotional  purposes.  The 
minute  I  see  a  woman  walking  on  to  the  stage,  I  say  to 
myself,  'Here  comes  the  Slop-tap!'  and  as  sure  as  I'm 
alive,  the  author  immediately  turns  the  tap  on  and  the 
woman  is  over  ears  and  head  in  slop  before  we're  two- 
thirds  through  the  first  act.  And  they're  not  like  that  in 
real  life,  any  more  than  we  are.  We  aren't  continually 
making  goo-goo  eyes,  nor  are  they.  I'm  going  to  write  a 
play  one  of  these  days  that  will  stagger  the  civilised  world, 
I  tell  you!  It'll  be  bung  full  of  women  but  it  won't  have 
a  word  of  slop  from  beginning  to  end!  ..." 

"It'll  be  a  failure,"  said  Ninian. 

"Oh,  from  the  box-office  point  of  view,  no  doubt!  ..." 

"No,  from  the  common  sense  point  of  view.  I'm  on  the 
side  of  Quinny  in  this  matter,  and  I'm  as  much  of  an  au- 
thority on  women  as  you  are,  Gilbert.  I've  loved  three 
different  barmaids  and  a  young  woman  in  a  tobacconist's 
shop,  and  I  say,  what  the  hell  is  the  good  of  talking  all  this 
rubbish  about  men  and  women  trotting  round  as  if  male 
and  female  He  had  not  created  them.  When  I  see  a  woman, 
if  she's  got  any  femininity  about  her  at  all,  I  want  to  hug 
her  and  kiss  her,  and  I  do  so,  if  I  can,  and  so  does  any 
man  if  he  is  a  man.  I  belong  to  the  masculine  gender 
and  she  belongs  to  the  feminine  .  .  .  and  that's  all  there's 
to  be  said  about  it.  If  we  were  neuters,  we  'd  be  characters 
in  your  play,  Gilbert.  ..." 

"I  don't  want  to  kiss  every  girl  I  meet,"  said  Gilbert. 

They  howled  at  him  in  derision.  "Oh,  you  liar!"  said 
Henry,  forgetting  his  anger. 

"You  hug  women  all  day  long,  you  Mormon!"  Ninian 
roared,  "or  you  would  if  they'd  let  you!" 


«ie  CHANGING  WINDS 

"That's  why  you  react  so  strongly  from  love  in  your 
plays,"  Roger  said  judicially.  "You  can't  leave  them 
alone  in  real  life.  ..." 

*'I  don't  mean  to  say  I  haven't  kissed  a  girl  or  two," 
Gilbert  admitted. 

"A  girl  or  two!  Listen  to  him ! ' '  Ninian  went  on.  * '  Oh, 
listen  to  the  innocent  babe  and  suckling.  A  girl  or  two! 
Look  here,  let's  make  a  census  of  'em.  "What  was  the 
name  of  that  girl  whose  brother  got  sent  down?  Lady 
Something?  ..." 

"Lady  Cecily!  .  .  ." 

' '  Shut  up ! "  Gilbert  shouted  at  them,  and  his  voice  was 
full  of  rage.  He  stood  over  them,  glaring  at  them 
fiercely.  .  .  . 

"I  say,  Gilbert!"  said  Henry,  "what's  up?" 

He  recovered  himself.  "  I  'm  sorry, ' '  he  said.  *  *  I  didn  't 
mean  to  lose  my  temper!" 

"That's  all  right,  Gilbert,"  Ninian  murmured.  "It  was 
my  fault.     I  oughtn't  to  have  rotted  you  like  that!" 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  Gilbert  answered. 


They  were  silent  for  a  while,  disconcerted  by  Gilbert's 
strange  outburst  of  anger,  and  for  a  few  moments  it  seemed 
as  if  their  argument  must  end  now.  Ninian  began  to  yawn 
again,  and  he  was  about  to  propose  once  more  that  they 
should  go  to  bed,  when  Gilbert  resumed  the  discussion. 

"You  make  no  allowance  for  reticence,"  he  said  to 
Henry.  "That's  what  Roger  really  wants  in  politics  .  .  . 
reticence!" 

"In  everything,"  Roger  exclaimed 

"I  know,"  Gilbert  went  on.  "When  I  first  went  in  to 
the  Daily  Echo  office,  I  saw  a  notice  in  the  sub-editor's 
room  which  tickled  me  to  death.  Elsden,  the  night  editor, 
had  put  it  up,  and  it  said  that  the  word  'gutted'  was 
not  to  be  used  in  describing  the  state  of  a  house  after  a 


CHANGING  WINDS  217 

fire.  I  went  to  Elsden  ...  I  like  him  better  than  any  one 
else  in  the  Echo  ofifiee  .  .  .  and  asked  him  what  was  the 
matter  with  the  word.  'Well,  my  dear  chap,'  he  said, 
'think  of  guts!  I  mean  to  say,  Guts!  Hang  it  all,  we 
must  cover  up  something ! '  I  thought  he  was  being  rather 
old-maidish  then,  but  I  'm  not  sure  now  that  Elsden 's  point 
of  view  hasn't  got  something  behind  it.  He  just  wanted 
to  be  decently  quiet  about  things  that  aren't  pretty!  I 
don't  think  it's  necessary  to  blurt  out  everything,  and  I'm 
certain  that  if  you  keep  on  washing  your  dirty  linen  in 
public,  people  will  end  up  by  thinking  you've  got  nothing 
else  but  dirty  linen.  Your  characters,"  he  added,  turning 
to  Henry,  "go  about,  splashing  in  their  emotions  as  if  they 
were  trick  swimmers  or  ...  or  damn  little  journalists.  I 
tell  you,  Quinny,  love's  a  private,  furtive  thing,  a  secret 
adventure,  and  open  exposure  of  it  is  a  sort  of  profan- 
ity  " 

"No,"  said  Henry  emphatically.  "Love's  made  nasty 
by  secrecy!"  He  began  to  spread  himself.  He  had  been 
reading  some  of  the  authors  of  the  Yellow  Book  period. 
"It  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  "that  the  marriage  rite  is 
broken,  incomplete.  In  a  healthy  state,  the  whole  function 
would  be  performed  in  public  ...  in  ...  in  a  cathedral, 
say.  There 'd  be  a  procession  of  priests  in  golden  chasu- 
bles, and  acolytes  swinging  carved  censers,  and  boys  with 
banners,  and  hidden  choirs  chanting  long  litanies.  ..." 

"I  shall  be  sick  in  a  minute!"  said  Gilbert.  "You're 
talking  like  an  over-ripe  Oscar  Wilde,  Quinny,  and  if  you 
were  really  that  sort  of  animal  I'd  have  you  hoofed  out  of 
this.  Get  out  the  whisky,  Ninian,  for  the  love  of  the  Lordy 
God !     This  aesthetic  stuff  makes  my  inside  wobble ! ' ' 

Ninian  went  to  the  sideboard  and  took  hold  of  the 
whisky  bottle.  "I  don't  much  like  that  sort  of  talk  my- 
self," he  said.  "It's  too  clever-clever  for  my  taste.  I 
shouldn't  let  it  grow  on  me,  Quinny,  if  I  were  you.  You'll 
get  a  reputation  like  bad  eggs,  and  people '11  think  you've 
strayed  out  of  your  period  and  got  lost.    As  a  matter  of 


218  CHANGING  WINDS 

fact,  Gilbert,  you  don't  really  want  whisky,  and  you^re  only 
going  to  drink  it  for  effect,  so  you  slian  't  have  any ! ' ' 

He  returned  to  his  seat,  as  he  spoke,  and  sat  down. 
Henry  had  a  quick  sense  of  shame.  He  had  spoken  insin- 
cerely, for  effect  ...  in  order  to  impress  them  with  his 
cleverness,  and  their  answer  to  him  filled  him  with  a  sense 
of  inferiority.  He  felt  that  they  must  despise  him,  and 
feeling  that,  he  began  to  despise  himself. 

"My  own  feeling  about  these  things,"  said  Ninian,  "is 
perfectly  simple.  I  believe  in  lust.  I'm  a  lustful  man 
myself,  and  so,  I  believe,  is  Roger!  ..." 

"No,  I'm  not,"  Roger  exclaimed. 

"Well,  I  am,"  Ninian  proceeded.  "Lust  is  the  motor 
force  of  the  world.  ..." 

"No,  it  isn't,"  Gilbert  interrupted.  "The  whole  of  civ- 
ilisation depends  upon  the  human  stomach.  If  men  would 
live  without  eating  .  .  .  the  whole  of  this  society  would 
dissolve.  Lust  is  subordinate  to  the  stomach,  Ninian. 
You've  never  seen  a  starving  man  in  a  purple  passion,  have 
you?" 

Ninian  leant  forward  and  tapped  the  table  with  his 
knuckles.  "I  say  that  lust  is  the  motor  force  of  the 
world,"  he  said,  "and  I  think  you  might  let  me  finish 
my  sentences,  Gilbert.  You  are  so  eager  to  vent  your  own 
views  that  you  won't  let  any  one  else  vent  his.  ..." 

"What's  the  good  of  venting  your  views  if  they're 
wrong,  damn  it!"  said  Gilbert. 

"Well,  let  me  finish  venting  'em  anyhow.  Assuming 
that  I'm  right,  I  say  you  should  treat  lust  exactly  as  you 
treat  the  circulation  of  your  blood:  don't  fuss  about  it. 
It's  a  natural  function,  neither  beautiful  nor  ugly.  It's 
just  there,  and  that's  all  about  it.  The  fellow  who  dithers 
about  it  as  if  he  'd  invented  a  new  philosophy  on  the  day  he 
first  slept  with  a  woman,  is  a  dirty,  neurotic  ass.  So  is  the 
fellow  who  pretends  that  there's  no  such  thing  as  sex  in 
the  world.  ^Male  and  female  created  He  them,  and  I  can 
tell  you.  He  jolly  well  knew  what  He  was  up  to!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  «19 

Roger  flicked  the  ash  from  his  cigarette  and  coughed 
slightly. 

"I  think,"  he  said,  "we  talk  too  much  about  these 
things.  They  pass  the  time,  of  course,  but  not  very  prof- 
itably. "Whatever  the  Universal  Motive  may  be  ...  I'm 
talking,  of  course,  without  prejudice  .  .  .  it'll  express  it- 
self in  complete  disregard  of  our  feelings  and  views.  I  have 
had  no  experience  of  women  otherwise  than  in  the  capac- 
ity of  a  mother,  several  aunts,  a  nurse,  a  number  of  cous- 
ins, and  also  some  waitresses  in  restaurants.  ..." 

"Roger's  never  kissed  a  woman  in  a  sexual  sense  in  his 
life,"  Gilbert  interrupted. 

' '  I  have  never  seen  the  necessity  of  it, ' '  Roger  said. 

"But  aren't  you  curious  to  know  what  it's  like?  After 
all,  it's  a  form  of  experience,"  Henry  asked,  looking  at 
Roger  with  curiosity. 

"Having  scarlet  fever  is  a  form  of  experience,  but  I 
don't  wish  to  know  what  it's  like,"  Roger  answered. 

'  *  My  God,  you  are  a  prig,  Roger ! ' '  said  Gilbert  simply. 

"I  know  that,"  Roger  answered.  "That's  why  I  don't 
get  on  with  women.  They  find  me  out.  No,"  he  contin- 
ued, "I've  no  experience  of  women  in  that  way.  I  dare- 
say I  shall  get  experience  some  day,  but  in  the  meantime, 
I've  got  my  job  to  do.  ..." 

"We  shall  have  a  virgin  Lord  Chancellor  on  the  wool- 
sack," said  Gilbert,  "and  then  may  God  have  mercy  on  all 
poor  litigants!" 

"We  really  ought  to  go  to  bed,"  Ninian  protested. 

"Not  yet,"  Henry  exclaimed. 

He  had  recovered  from  his  feeling  of  dejection,  and  he 
was  eager  to  retrieve  the  good  opinion  which  he  thought 
he  had  lost. 

"My  own  view,"  he  said,  beginning  as  they  always  be- 
gan their  oracular  pronouncements,  "my  own  view  is  that 
we  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  in  masses  instead  of  in  in- 
dividuals. Everybody  who  tries  to  reform  the  world, 
tries  to  make  it  uniform,  but  what  we  want  is  the  most 


220  CHANGING  WINDS 

complete  diversity  that's  obtainable.  It's  the  variations 
from  type  that  make  type  bearable !  .  .  ." 

"That's  a  good  phrase,  Quinny.  Where 'd  you  get  it 
from?"  Gilbert  interrupted. 

Henry  flushed  with  pleasure.  **I  made  it  up,"  he  an- 
swered. "All  men  are  different,"  he  went  on,  "and  there- 
fore the  morals  that  suit  one  person  are  unlikely  to  suit 
another  person.  Roger  doesn't  bother  about  women.  He 
looks  upon  them  as  a  ...  a  sideline.  Don't  you,  Roger? 
He'll  marry  in  due  course,  and  he'll  have  one  woman,  and 
he'll  have  her  all  to  himself.    Won't  you,  Roger?" 

"Probably,"  Roger  replied,  "but  there's  no  certainty 
about  these  things." 

Henry  proceeded.  "Gilbert  wants  lots  and  lots  of 
women,  but  he  doesn't  want  to  talk  about  it,  and  he  wants 
to  keep  his  women  and  his  work  separate  ...  in  water- 
tight compartments,  as  it  were.  As  if  you  could  do  that ! 
And  Ninian  wants  to  have  a  good  old  hearty  coarse  time 
like  .  .  .  like  Tom  Jones  .  .  .  and  then  he'll  repent  and 
praise  God  and  lay  his  stick  about  the  backsides  of  all  the 
young  sinners  he  meets ! ' ' 

"No,  I  don't,  ..."  said  Ninian,  but  Henry,  having 
started,  would  not  let  himself  be  interrupted.  "I  want  to 
have  lots  and  lots  of  women,"  he  went  on  hurriedly,  "but  I 
don't  care  who  knows  about  them.  I  like  talking  about  my 
love-affairs.  ..." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  talk  about  'em?"  Gilbert  de- 
manded. 

Henry  was  nonplussed.  His  speech  became  hesitant. 
"I  ...  I  said  I'd  like  to  talk  about  them,"  he  replied. 
"I  didn't  say  I  would  do  so.  .  .  ."  He  hurried  away 
from  the  subject.  "But  chieHy,"  he  said,  "I  don't  want 
anything  permanent  in  my  life.  Now,  do  you  understand  ? 
Roger's  like  the  Rock  of  Ages  .  .  .  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day  and  forever,  but  I  want  to  be  different  to-morrow 
from  what  I  am  to-day,  and  different  again  the  day  after. 
Endless  variety  for  me ! " 


CHANGING  WINDS  2«1 

"It'll  be  an  awful  lot  of  trouble,"  said  Gilbert. 

'  *  That  doesn  't  matter.  Now  my  argument  is  that  I  have 
a  different  nature  from  Roger  and  all  of  you,  but  I'm  not 
a  worse  man  than  any  of  you  are.  ..." 

"No,  no,  of  course  not,"  they  asserted. 

"I'm  just  different,  that's  all.  The  man  who  loves  one 
woman  and  cleaves  to  her  until  death  do  them  part  isn't  a 
better  man  or  a  worse  man  than  the  chap  who  loves  a  dif- 
ferent woman  every  year,  and  doesn 't  cleave  to  any  of  them. 
He's  just  different.  You  see,"  he  continued,  pleased  with 
the  way  he  was  enunciating  his  opinions,  "we  are  of  all 
sorts.  There  are  lustful  men  and  there  are  men  who  have 
scarcely  any  sex  impulse  at  all,  and  there  are  coarse  men 
and  refined  men,  and  .  .  .  and  all  sorts  of  men,  and  they  're 
all  necessary  to  the  world.  I  say,  why  not  recognise  the 
differences  between  them  and  leave  it  at  that?  It's  silly 
to  try  and  fit  us  all  with  the  same  system  of  morals  when 
nobody  but  a  fool  would  try  to  fit  us  all  with  the  same  size 
hat!" 

"You  don't  make  any  allowance  for  the  views  of 
women,"  Roger  said. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  do,"  Henry  retorted  quickly.  "There  is  as 
much  variety  among  women  as  there  is  among  men.  Some 
of  them  are  monogamous  and  some  aren't.    That's  all!" 

Gilbert  stretched  his  legs  out  in  front  of  him  and  then 
drew  them  back  again.  "Our  little  Quinny's  got  this 
world  neatly  parcelled  out,"  he  said.  "Hasn't  he,  coves? 
There  he  sits,  like  a  little  Jehovah,  handing  out  natures  as 
if  they  were  school-prizes.  *  Here,  my  little  lad,  here 's  your 
set  of  morals.  Now,  run  away  and  make  a  hog  of  yourself 
with  the  women ! '  *  Here,  my  little  lad,  here 's  your  set  of 
morals.    Now,  run  away  and  be  a  bally  monk!'  " 

' ' Exactly ! ' '  said  Henry.    "That 's  my  view  I ' ' 

"Well,  all  I  can  say,"  said  Ninian,  "is  that  it  won't  do. 
This  may  be  a  tom-fool  sort  of  a  world,  but  it  gets  along 
in  its  tom-fool  way  a  lot  better  than  it  will  in  your  neat 
arrangement  of  things.  ..." 


222  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Besides,"  Roger  said,  taking  up  the  argument  from 
Ninian,  "there  is  a  common  measure  in  life.  Oh,  I  know 
quite  well  that  there  are  differences  between  man  and  man, 
but  there  are  resemblances,  too,  and  what  we've  got  to  do 
.  .  .  the  Improved  Tories,  I  mean  ...  is  to  discover  which 
is  the  more  important,  the  resemblances  of  men  or  the  dif- 
ferences of  men.  As  a  lawyer,  of  course,  I  only  know 
what 's  in  my  brief,  but  as  a  man,  I  'm  interested ! ' ' 

"The  question  is,"  said  Gilbert,  "are  women  a  damned 
nuisance  that  ought  to  be  put  down,  or  are  they  not?  I 
say  they  are,  but  I  like  'em  all  the  same,  and  that  only 
shows  what  a  blasted  hole  I  'm  in.  I  like  kissing  them  .  .  . 
it's  no  good  pretending  that  I  don't.  ..." 

"Not  a  bit,"  said  Ninian. 

*  *  And  I  kiss  'em  whenever  I  get  a  chance, ' '  Gilbert  con- 
tinued, "but  all  the  same  I'd  like  to  be  a  whopping  big 
icicle  so  as  to  be  able  to  ignore  'em  .  .  .  like  Roger ! ' ' 

Ninian  got  up,  resolved  on  going  to  bed.  * '  Come  on, ' '  he 
said,  stretching  himself.  "Our  jaw  about  women  doesn't 
appear  to  have  solved  anything ! ' ' 

"It  never  will,"  Roger  answered,  rising  too.  "We  shall 
still  be  jawing  about  them  this  day  twelvemonth.  ..." 

"D.V.,"  said  Gilbert. 

"But  we  won't  get  any  forrarder!" 

"Rum  things,  women !"  said  Ninian,  moving  towards  the 
door,  * '  but  very  nice  .  .  .  very  nice,  indeed ! ' ' 

"My  goodness  me,  I  am  tired,"  Gilbert  yawned.  "Oh, 
so  tired!  But  we've  settled  everything,  haven't  we?  The 
empire  and  women  and  so  on  ?  Great  Scott, ' '  he  exclaimed, 
"we  forgot  to  say  anything  about  God!" 

"So  we  did,"  said  Ninian,  and  he  turned  back  from  the 
door. 

"The  Improved  Tories  really  ought  to  make  up  their 
minds  about  religion,"  Gilbert  went  on. 

"Can't  we  leave  that  until  to-morrow?"  Roger  com- 
plained. "We  needn't  talk  about  Him  to-night,  need  we? 
I'm  frightfully  sleepy!  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  ««8 


While  Henry  was  undressing,  he  remembered  how  angry 
Gilbert  had  been  with  Ninian  and  Roger  because  they  had 
mentioned  the  name  of  a  girl  for  whom  he  had  cared. 

"Awfully  rum,  that!"  he  said  to  himself,  sitting  on  the 
edge  of  his  bed. 

He  tried  to  recall  her  name.  "Lady  something!"  he 
said,  and  then  said  several  times,  "Lady  .  .  .  Lady  .  .  . 
Lady!  .  .  ."in  the  hope  that  the  name  would  follow.  But 
he  could  not  remember  it. 

* '  Odd  that  I  never  heard  of  her  before. ' ' 

He  put  on  his  dressing-gown,  and  opened  the  door  of  his 
room.     "  1 11  ask  old  Ninian, ' '  he  said,  as  he  went  out. 

Ninian,  who  had  been  yawning  so  heavily  downstairs, 
was  now  sitting  up  in  bed,  reading  a  copy  of  the  Engineer. 

"Hilloa,"  he  exclaimed  as  Henry  entered  the  room  in 
response  to  his  ' '  Come  in ! " 

"I  say,  Ninian,  what  was  the  name  of  the  girl  that  Gil- 
bert was  so  gone  on  at  Cambridge  ?  Lady  something  or  other ! 
He  was  rather  sick  with  you  for  mentioning  her.  ..." 

"Oh,  Lady  Cecily  Jayne ! " 

*  *  Is  that  her  name  ?    Who  is  she  ? ' ' 

"Society  female,"  said  Ninian.  "Takes  an  interest  in 
literature  and  art  in  her  spare  time,  but  she  doesn't  know 
anything  about  either  of  them.  Her  brother  was  in  our 
college  until  he  got  sent  down.  That  was  how  Gilbert  met 
her.  She  came  up  one  May  week  and  made  eyes  at  Gil- 
bert.    She  wasn't  married  then!  ..." 

"Is  she  married?"  Henry  interrupted. 

"Oh,  yes.  She  used  to  be  Lady  Cecily  Blandgate  .  .  . 
her  father's  the  Earl  of  Bucklersbury.  She's  a  big  fe- 
male. .  .  ." 

"What  do  you  mean?    Fat?" 

"No.    Tall,"  said  Ninian. 

"Is  she  good-looking?" 

"Yes,  she  is,  and  rather  amusing,  too,  in  a  footling  sort 


«24t  CHANGING  WINDS 

of  way.  She's  got  a  fearful  appetite,  and  she  thinks  of 
herself  all  day  long.  I  know  because  she  damn  near  ruined 
me  over  cream  buns  once." 

"I  suppose  Gilbert  was  in  love  with  her?  ..." 

"I  suppose  so.  He  didn't  tell  me  and  I  didn't  ask,  but 
he  mooned  about  with  her  and  looked  awfully  sloppy  when 
he  passed  her  things.  You  know  what  I  mean.  He'd 
hand  her  a  plate  of  bread  and  butter,  and  look  at  her  as 
much  as  to  say,  'This  is  really  my  heart  I'm  handing 
you !  *    I  never  saw  a  chap  look  such  an  ass ! " 

"Has  she  been  married  very  long?" 

"Oh,  a  year  or  two.  I  don't  know.  I'm  not  very  in- 
terested in  her.  Too  much  of  a  female  for  my  taste.  Ex- 
tremely entertaining  in  the  evening  and  the  afternoon,  but 
awfully  boring  in  the  morning!  ..." 

* '  Sounds  like  sour  grapes,  Ninian ! ' ' 

*  *  Oh,  I  've  been  in  love  with  her  if  that 's  what  you  mean. 
We  all  were,  even  old  Roger.  In  fact,  I  kissed  her  once 
...  or  was  it  twice  ?  She 's  the  sort  of  woman  a  chap  does 
kiss  somehow.  I  couldn't  think  of  anything  else  to  do  when 
I  was  with  her.  That's  why  she's  so  dull.  She  splashes 
her  sex  about  as  if  she  were  distributing  handbills.  I'm 
surprised  that  you  don't  know  her.  She's  a  very  well- 
known  female.  ..." 

"I've  been  in  Ireland,  Ninian.  ..." 

"So  you  have.  I'd  forgotten  that.  Of  course,  if  you 
will  live  in  a  place  like  that,  you  can't  expect  to  be  fa- 
miliar with  the  wonders  of  civilisation.  Ever  see  the 
Daily  Reflexion?" 

"Oh,  yes,  we  get  that  in  Ireland  all  right!" 

"Do  you,  indeed!  Well,  praise  God  from  Whom  all 
blessings  flow.  If  you  buy  a  copy  of  to-morrow's  Daily 
Reflexion,  you  11  probably  see  her  photograph  in  it,  or  a 
paragraph  about  her.  Roger  says  people  pay  to  have  them- 
selves mentioned  once  a  month  in  that  sort  of  rag ! ' ' 

"What's  her  husband  like?"  Henry  asked. 

"God  made  him,  but  nobody  knows  why.    I  believe 


CHANGING  WINDS  225 

chorus  girls  call  him  'Chummie.'  That's  his  purpose  in 
life.  I  say,  Henry,  there's  a  ripping  sketch  of  a  new  kind 
of  engine  in  this  paper.  I  wish  you'd  let  me  explain  it 
to  you.  .  .  ." 

"Who  is  her  husband?"  said  Henry. 

' '  Who  is  who 's  husband  ? ' ' 

"Lady  Cecily  Jayne's!  ..." 

"Lordy  God,  man,  you're  not  talking  about  her  still,  are 
you?  Her  husband  is  .  .  .  let  me  see  .  .  .  oh,  yes,  he's 
Lord  Jasper  Jayne.  His  name  sounds  like  the  hero  of  a 
servant 's  novelette,  but  he  doesn  't  look  like  that.  He  looks 
like  a  chucker-out  in  a  back-street  pub.  His  father's  the 
Marquis  of  Dulbury.  He's  the  second  son.  The  eldest  is 
sillier,  but  it's  all  b^en  hushed  up.  Anything  else  you 
want  to  know  ? ' ' 

"I'm  just  interested,  that's  all!" 

"Her  brother  ...  I  told  you,  didn't  I?  .  .  .  was  at 
Cambridge  with  us.  He  came  down  a  year  before  we  did. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  sent  down  and  told  to  stay 
down.  He  ducked  a  proctor  in  a  water-butt  and  the  dons 
were  very  cross  about  it.  He's  not  a  bad  fellow.  I  think 
we  '11  ask  him  round  here  one  evening.  Lady  Cecily 's  very 
fond  of  him  .  .  .  she  used  to  come  up  to  Cambridge  to  see 
him  .  .  .  before  the  affair  with  the  proctor,  of  course  .  .  . 
and  Gilbert  and  I  took  her  and  another  female  out  in  a 
punt  once!" 

Henry,  who  had  been  sittting  in  an  arm-chair  while  Nin- 
ian  told  him  about  Lady  Cecily  Jayne,  got  up  and  walked 
across  the  room. 

"Gilbert  was  very  upset  when  you  mentioned  her  name," 
he  said.    "I  suppose  her  marriage  was  a  blow  to  him?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  Look  here,  Quinny,  if  you're  going 
to  jaw  any  more  about  this  female,  you  can  just  hop  off  to 
your  own  room,  but  if  you'd  like  to  hear  me  explaining 
these  diagrams  to  you,  you  can  stay.  ..." 

"Do  you  ever  see  Lady  Cecily  now?"  Henry  asked,  ig- 
noring what  Ninian  had  said. 


226  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Now  and  again.     Gilbert  sees  her  quite  often.  ..." 

"Does  he?"  Henry  said  eagerly. 

"Yes.  At  first  nights.  She  goes  to  the  theatre  a  lot. 
Do  you  want  to  meet  her?" 

There  was  some  confusion  in  Henry's  voice  as  he  an- 
swered, "I  should  like  to  meet  her.  You  see,  I've  never 
known  a  really  beautiful  woman.  ..." 

"Aren't  there  any  in  Ireland?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Plenty.  Peasant  girls,  particularly!"  He 
thought  for  a  moment  or  two  of  Sheila  Morgan,  and  then 
hurriedly  went  on.  "But  I've  never  known  a  really  beau- 
tiful woman.  You  see,  Ninian,  ours  is  a  fairly  lonely  sort 
of  house,  and  I've  spent  most  of  my  time  either  there  or 
at  T.C.D.  or  at  Rumpell's,  and  somehow  I've  never  got  to 
know  any  one.  ..." 

"Well,  you'd  better  ask  Gilbert  to  take  you  with  him  to  a 
first-night.  She's  sure  to  be  there,  and  you  can  ask  him 
to  introduce  you  to  her.  And  now,  you  can  hoof  out, 
young  fellow!  ..." 

Henry  went  back  to  his  own  room  and  got  into  bed,  but 
he  did  not  sleep  until  the  dawn  began  to  break.  His 
thoughts  wandered  vaguely  about  his  mind,  bumping  up 
against  one  recollection  and  then  against  another.  He  re- 
membered Sheila  Morgan  and  the  bright  look  in  her  eyes 
that  evening  when  she  had  hurriedly  come  into  the  Lan- 
guage class  out  of  the  rain  .  .  .  and  while  he  was  remem- 
bering Sheila,  he  found  himself  thinking  of  Mary  Graham 
and  the  way  in  which  she  would  put  up  her  hand  and  throw 
her  long  hair  from  her  shoulders.  Then  came  memories  of 
Bridget  Fallon  .  .  .  and  almost  mechanically  he  began  to 
murmur  a  prayer  to  the  Virgin.  "Hail  Mary,  full  of 
grace,  the  Lord  is  with  thee.  Blessed  art  thou  among 
women,  and  blessed  is  the  fruit  of  thy  womb,  Jesus !  .  .  . " 

He  turned  over  on  his  side,  pulling  the  bedclothes  more 
closely  about  him.  "Cecily  Jayne,"  he  murmured  in  a 
sleepy  voice.    "What  a  pretty  name,  that  is!" 


THE  FOURTH  CHAPTER 


Their  days  were  spent  in  work.  Ninian  and  Roger  left 
the  house  soon  after  nine  o'clock,  Ninian  to  go  to  the  office 
of  his  engineering  firm  in  Victoria  Street,  Roger  to  go  to 
his  chambers  in  the  Temple,  leaving  Henry  and  Gilbert  to 
work  at  home.  In  the  evening,  provided  that  there  was  not 
a  "first-night"  to  call  Gilbert  to  the  theatre,  they  talked 
of  themselves  and  of  their  future.  Their  egotism  was  un- 
disguised. They  had  set  their  minds  on  a  high  destiny  and 
were  certain  that  they  would  achieve  it,  so  they  did  not 
waste  any  energy,  as  Gilbert  once  said,  in  pretending  that 
they  were  not  remarkably  able.  In  a  short  time,  they 
gathered  a  group  of  friends  about  them  who  were,  they 
thought,  likely  to  work  well  and  ably,  and  it  became  the 
custom  for  their  friends  to  visit  them  on  Thursday  even- 
ing. Gilbert  began  the  custom  of  asking  some  one  to  dine 
with  them  on  Thursday,  and  the  guest  was  expected  to  ac- 
count for  himself  to  the  group  that  assembled  after  dinner. 
The  Improved  Tories,  according  to  Gilbert,  wanted  heart- 
to-heart  talks  from  people  of  experience.  If  a  guest 
treated  them  to  flummery,  they  let  him  know  that  they 
despised  his  flummery  and  insisted  on  asking  him  ques- 
tions of  a  peculiarly  intimate  character.  There  were  less 
than  a  dozen  people  in  the  group,  apart  from  Roger  and 
Ninian  and  Gilbert  and  Henry,  but  each  of  them  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  some  fashion  at  his  college.  Hilary 
Cornwall  had  taken  so  many  prizes  and  scholarships  that 
he  had  lost  count  of  them,  and  when  he  entered  the  Co- 
lonial Office,  it  became  a  commonplace  to  say  of  him  that 
he  was  destined  to  become   Permanent   Under-Secretary 

227 


228  CHANGING  WINDS 

at  a  remarkably  youthful  age.  Gerald  Luke  had  produced 
two  little  books  of  poetry  of  such  quality  that  people  be- 
lieved that  he  was  in  the  line  of  great  tradition.  Ernest 
Carr  had  edited  Granta  so  ably  that  he  was  invited  to  join 
the  staff  of  the  Times.  Then  there  were  Ashley  Earls,  who 
had  had  a  play  produced  by  the  Stage  Society,  and  Peter 
Crooks,  the  chemist,  and  Edward  Allen,  who  was  private 
secretary  to  a  Cabinet  Minister,  and  Goeffrey  Grant,  an- 
other journalist,  and  Clifford  Dartrey,  who  spent  his  time 
in  research  work  and  had  already  produced  a  book  on 
Casual  Labour  in  the  Building  Trades  in  return  for  the 
Shaw  Prize  at  the  London  School  of  Economics. 

They  called  themselves  the  Improved  Tories,  although 
most  of  them  would  have  voted  at  an  election  for  any  one 
but  a  Conservative  candidate.  Ashley  Earls  and  Gerald 
Luke  were  Socialists  and  had  only  consented  to  join  the 
group  because  they  were  told  that  the  purpose  of  it  was 
less  political  than  sociological. 

"You  see,"  Gilbert  said  to  them,  "it  isn't  good  for  Eng- 
land to  have  a  Tory  Party  so  dense  as  this  one  is,  and 
you'll  really  be  doing  useful  work  if  you  help  to  improve 
their  quality.  What  is  the  good  of  an  Opposition  which 
can  do  nothing  but  oppose?  Look  at  that  fellow.  Sir 
Frederick  Banbury !  What  in  the  name  of  God  is  the  good 
of  a  man  like  that?  He  doesn't  make  anything  ...  he 
just  gets  in  the  way.  Of  course,  that's  useful  .  .  .  but  he 
doesn't  know  when  to  get  out  of  the  way  .  .  .  which  is 
much  more  useful.  And  there  ought  to  be  people  who 
aren't  content  either  to  get  in  the  way  or  just  get  out  of 
it  .  .  .  there  ought  to  be  people  who  can  shove  things  along. 
But  there  aren't  .  .  .  except  Balfour,  and  he's  getting  old 
and  anyhow  he  hasn't  got  much  health.  You  see  what  I 
mean,  don't  you?  There  ought  to  be  a  strong  Opposition, 
otherwise  the  Liberals  will  develop  fatty  degeneration  of 
the  political  sense.  .  .  .  The  trouble  with  a  lot  of  these 
fellows  is  that  they  believe  that  twaddle  that  Lord  Ran- 
dolph  Churchill  talked  about  the  duty  of  an  Opposition 


CHANGING  WINDS  ««9 

being  to  oppose.  Of  course  it  isn't.  The  duty  of  the  Op- 
position ie  to  criticise  and  to  improve,  if  they  can.  ..." 

And  so  Ashley  Earls  and  Gerald  Luke  joined  the  group 
of  Improved  Tories,  not  as  members,  but  as  critics.  It  was 
they  who  induced  the  others  to  join  the  Fabian  Society. 
"You  can  become  subscribers  .  .  .  that  won't  commit  you 
to  anything  .  .  .  and  then  you'll  be  able  to  attend  all  the 
meetings  and  get  all  the  publications.  It'll  be  good  for 
you!  .  .  ." 

The  supply  of  political  guests  was  not  of  the  quality 
they  desired.  The  eminent  politicians  were  either  too  busy 
or  too  scornful  to  accept  their  invitations.  F.  E.  Robinson 
was  impertinent  to  them  until  he  heard  that  Mr.  Balfour 
was  interested  in  their  proceedings  .  .  .  had  even  asked 
to  be  introduced  to  Roger  Carey  .  .  .  and  then  he  offered 
to  address  them  on  Young  Toryism,  but  they  told  him  that 
they  did  not  now  wish  to  hear  him.  They  had  taken  Rob- 
inson's measure  very  quickly.  "Police-court  lawyer!" 
they  said,  and  ceased  to  trouble  about  him.  Mr.  Balfour 
never  attended  the  group,  but  they  consoled  themselves  to 
some  extent  by  reading  his  book  on  Decadence  and  arguing 
about  it  among  themselves.  If,  however,  they  were  not  able 
to  secure  many  of  the  Eminent  Ones,  they  were  able  to 
secure  plenty  of  the  Semi-Eminent,  far  more  than  they 
wanted,  and  for  half  a  year,  they  listened  to  politicians  of 
all  sorts.  Old  Tories  and  Young  Tories,  Liberal  Imperial- 
ists and  Radicals,  Fabian  Socialists  and  Social  Democrats, 
heckling  them  and  being  heckled  by  them.  At  the  end  of 
that  six  months,  Gilbert  revolted  against  politicians. 

"These  aren't  the  people  who  really  matter,"  he  said. 
"They  don't  start  things.  We  want  to  get  hold  of  the 
people  with  new  ideas  .  .  .  the  men  who  begin  movements 
and  the  men  who  aren't  always  wondering  what  their  con- 
stituents will  say  if  they  hear  about  it ! " 

Then  followed  a  term  with  men  who  might  have  been 
called  cranks.  Bernard  Shaw  declined  to  dine  with  them 
...  he  preferred  to  eat  at  home.  .  .  .  "Voluptuous  vege- 


230  CHANGING  WINDS 

tarian!"  said  Gilbert  .  .  .  but  he  talked  to  them  for  an 
hour  on  "Equality"  and  tried  to  persuade  them  to  advo- 
cate equal  incomes  for  all,  asserting  that  this  was  desir- 
able from  every  point  of  view,  biological,  social  and  eco- 
nomic. Following  Bernard  Shaw,  came  Edward  Carpen- 
ter, very  gentle  and  very  gracious,  denouncing  modern  civ- 
ilisation in  words  which  were  spoken  quietly,  but  which, 
in  print,  read  like  a  thunderstorm.  Alfred  Russell  Wal- 
lace, whom  they  invited  to  talk  on  Evolution,  came  and 
talked  instead  on  the  nationalisation  of  land.  He  sat,  hud- 
dled in  a  chair,  very  old  and  very  bright,  with  eyes  that 
sparkled  behind  his  glasses  .  .  .  and  suddenly,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  his  discourse  on  land,  he  informed  them  that  he  had 
positive  proof  of  the  existence  of  angels.  "IMy  God,  he'll 
want  to  make  civil  servants  of  'em ! ' '  Gilbert  whispered  to 
Henry.  .  .  .  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  dined  with  them  one 
night,  eating  so  little  that  he  scarcely  seemed  to  eat  at  all, 
and  he  preached  the  whole  gospel  of  co-operation.  It  was 
through  him  that  they  got  hold  of  an  agricultural  genius 
called  T.  Wibberley,  an  English-Irishman,  who  reorganised 
the  entire  farming  system  on  a  basis  of  continuous  crop- 
ping inside  an  hour  and  ten  minutes..  Wibberley  knew 
Henry's  father,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  Henry 
learned  that  Mr.  Quinn's  agricultural  experiments  were  of 
value.  .  .  .  Then  came  H.  G.  Wells,  smiling  and  very  dep- 
recating and  almost  inarticulate,  to  tell  them  of  the  enor- 
mous importance  of  the  novelist.  They  got  him  into  a  cor- 
ner of  the  room,  when  he  had  finished  reading  his  paper, 
and  persuaded  him  to  make  caricatures  of  them  .  .  .  and 
while  he  was  making  the  caricatures,  he  talked  to  them  far 
more  brilliantly  than  he  had  read  to  them.  G.  K.  Chester- 
ton and  Hilaire  Belloc  came  to  lecture  and  stayed  to  drink. 
Chesterton's  lecture  would  have  been  funny,  they  agreed, 
if  they  had  been  able  to  hear  it,  but  he  laughed  so  heartily 
at  his  jokes,  as  he,  so  to  speak,  saw  them  approaching,  that 
he  forgot  to  make  them.  His.  method  of  speech  was  a  mix- 
ture of  giggle  and  whisper.    "  Chuckle-and-squeak ! "  Gil- 


CHANGING  WINDS  J8SI 

bert  called  it,  Belloc  whispered  dark  things  about  Influ- 
ential Families  and  Hebrews  and  seemed  to  think  that  a 
man  who  changed  his  name  only  did  so  with  the  very  worst 
intentions.  He  and  Chesterton  said  harsh  things  about 
the  Party  System,  and  they  babbled  beatifically  about  the 
Catholic  Church.  .  .  .  "Two  big  men  like  that  gabbling 
like  a  couple  of  priest-smitten  flappers!"  said  Gilbert  in 
disgust  as  he  listened  to  them.  "Them  and  their  Cathlik 
Church!"  he  added,  imitating  Belloc 's  way  of  pronouncing 
the  word  "Catholic."  Mouldy,  grovelling,  fat  Papists!  he 
called  them,  and  vowed  that  he  would  resign  from  the  Im- 
proved Tories  if  any  more  of  that  sort  were  asked  to  ad- 
dress them.  That  was  because  some  one  had  suggested 
that  Cecil  Chesterton  should  also  be  invited  to  dine  with 
them.  "  He 's  simply  Belloc 's  echo, ' '  Gilbert  protested.  *  *  I 
should  feel  as  if  I  were  listening  to  his  master's  voice. 
Besides,  he's  fatter  than  Belloc  and  he's  a  damned  jiggery- 
pokery  Papist  too !  Why  don 't  these  chaps  go  and  cover 
themselves  with  blue  woad  and  play  mumbo-jumbo  tricks 
before  the  village  idol!  That  'ud  be  about  as  intelligent 
as  their  Popery ! ' '  They  intended  to  ask  Lord  Hugh  Cecil 
to  talk  to  them  about  Conservatism,  but  when  they  read  his 
book  on  the  subject  they  decided  that  such  a  Conservative 
was  utterly  damnable  .  .  .  and  so  they  asked  his  brother, 
Lord  Robert,  instead,  and  found  that  his  point  of  view, 
although  much  more  human  and  less  logical  than  that  of 
Lord  Hugh,  was  antipathetic  to  theirs. 

"Let's  get  Garvin!"  Gilbert  suggested,  when  they  dis- 
cussed the  question  of  a  more  improved  Tory  than  Lord 
Robert.  "The  Cecils  are  no  good  .  .  .  they're  too  super- 
stitious!" which  was  his  way  of  saying  that  they  were  too 
religious,  "They're  worse  than  priests:  they're  .  .  . 
they're  laymen!  I  propose  that  we  ask  Garvin  to  come 
and  talk  to  us.  He  seems  to  be  shoving  the  Tories  all  over 
the  place!"  So  they  invited  the  editor  of  the  Observer 
to  dine  and  talk  with  them,  and  he  came,  a  quick,  eager, 
intense  man,  with  large,  starting  eyes,  who  spoke  so  quickly 


282  CHANGING  WINDS 

that  his  words  became  entangled  and  were  wrecked  on  his 
teeth.  They  liked  him,  but  they  were  dubious  of  his  right 
to  represent  the  Tory  spirit.  It  seemed  to  them  that  this 
eager,  thrusting-forward  man,  who  banged  the  table  in 
his  earnestness,  might  carry  a  political  party  off  its  feet  in 
his  passion,  but  they  were  afraid  that  the  feet  would  trail, 
that  the  party  would  be  reluctant  to  be  lifted.  "He's 
Irish,"  said  Roger  in  judgment. 

' '  It  isn  't  any  good, ' '  Gilbert  remarked,  when  Garvin  had 
gone  home,  "trying  to  persuade  the  English  to  spread  their 
wings.  They  haven't  got  any.  Garvin  'ud  do  better  if 
he  'd  hold  a  carrot  in  front  of  them  .  .  .  they  'd  follow  that. 
Quinny,"  he  added,  "you  ought  to  ask  Garvin  for  a  job  on 
the  Observer.    They  say  he  can't  resist  an  Irishman!" 

"I  will,"  Henry  replied. 

"Oh,  and  there's  a  chance  of  doing  book  reviews  on  the 
Morning  Report!"  Geoffrey  Grant  said.  "I  told  Leonard, 
the  literary  editor,  about  you,  and  he  said  he  'd  look  at  you 
if  you  went  round  one  day ! '  * 

"I'll  go  and  look  at  him,"  Henry  answered. 


While  they  were  spending  their  evenings  in  this  fashion, 
Henry,  working  steadily  in  the  mornings,  completely  re- 
vised his  novel.  Gilbert,  working  less  steadily  than  Henry, 
finished  a  new  comedy  and  sent  it  to  Sir  Goeffrey  ]\Iun- 
dane,  the  manager  of  the  Pall  Mall  Theatre,  who  utterly 
astounded  Gilbert  by  accepting  it. 

"Quinny!"  he  shouted,  running  up  to  Henry's  room 
with  the  letter  which  had  been  delivered  by  the  mid-day 
post,  " Mundane 's  accepted  *The  Magic  Casement'!" 

"What's  that?"  said  Henry,  turning  round  from  his 
desk. 

"He's  accepted  it,  Quinny!  I  always  said  he  was  a 
damned  good  actor,  and  so  he  is.  My  Lord,  this  is  rip- 
ping!   He  says  it's  a  splendid  comedy  ...  so  it  is  ...  as 


CHANGING  WINDS  28» 

good  as  Oscar  Wilde  at  his  test  ...  oh,  better,  damn  it, 
better  .  .  .  and  will  I  please  come  and  see  him  on  Friday 
morning  at  eleven  o'clock  ...  I'll  be  there  before  he's  out 
of  bed!  ...  I  say,  Quinny,  we  ought  to  do  something, 
ought  'nt  we  ?  Is  it  the  correct  thing  to  get  drunk  on  these 
occasions  ? ' ' 

His  joy  was  so  extravagant  that  Henry  felt  many  years 
older  than  Gilbert,  and  he  patted  him  paternally  on  the 
shoulder  and  told  him  to  develop  the  stoic  virtues. 

**I'm  most  frightfully  pleased,  Gilbert!"  he  said,  when 
he  had  done  with  the  paternal  manner.  "When's  he  going 
to  put  the  play  on?" 

* '  He  doesn  't  say.  The  thing  he 's  doing  now  is  no  damn 
good,  and  he'll  probably  take  it  off  soon.  Perhaps  he'll 
produce  'The  Magic  Casement'  after  that.  Quinny,  it  is 
a  good  play,  isn^t  it?  Sometimes  I  get  a  most  shocking 
hump  about  things,  and  I  think  I'm  no  good  at  all.  ..." 

"Of  course,  it's  a  good  play,  Gilbert!  ..." 

"Yes,  but  is  it  good  enough?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  suppose  anything  ever  is.  I 
thought  'Drusilla'  was  a  great  book  until  my  father  read  it, 
and  then  I  thought  it  was  rubbish.  ..." 

"It  wasn't  rubbish,  Quinny,  and  the  revised  version  is 
really  good." 

* '  I  think  that,  too,  but  sometimes  I  'm  not  sure  I ' ' 

"Isn't  it  damnable,  Quinny,  this  job  of  writing?  You 
never  get  any  satisfaction  out  of  it.  I'd  like  to  make 
cheeses  ...  I'm  sure  people  who  make  cheeses  feel  that 
they've  just  made  the  very  best  cheese  that  can  be  made  .  .  . 
but  I'm  always  seeing  something  in  my  work  that  might 
have  been  done  better." 

Henry  nodded  his  head.  "I  suppose,"  he  said,  "it'll 
always  be  like  that.  I  think,"  he  went  on,  "Maiden  is  go- 
ing to  take  my  novel.  I  saw  Redder  yesterday!  .  .  ." 
Redder  was  his  agent  .  .  .  "and  he  says  Maiden's  the  like- 
liest person.  I  shan't  get  much.  Forty  or  fifty  pounds 
on  account  of  royalties,  but  it 's  a  start ! ' ' 


834  CHANGING  WINDS 

"The  great  thing,"  said  Gilbert,  "is  to  get  into  print. 
I  wonder  how  much  I'll  make  out  of  my  play!" 

"More  than  I  shall  make  out  of  my  novel,"  Henry  an- 
swered. His  talks  with  Mr.  Redder  had  modified  Henry's 
ideas  of  the  profits  made  by  novelists. 

Gilbert  started  up  from  the  low  chair  into  which  he 
had  thrown  himself.  "I'm  going  to  start  on  another  play 
this  minute!"  he  said.  "My  head's  simply  humming 
with  ideas !"  He  stopped  half  way  to  the  door,  and  turned 
towards  Henry  again.  "You  were  working  when  I  came 
in, "  he  said.    *  *  What  are  you  doing  ? " 

"I've  started  another  novel,"  Henry  answered. 

"Oh!    Done  much  of  it?" 

*  *  No,  only  the  title.     I  'm  calling  it  '  Broken  Spears. '  ' ' 

"Damn  good  title,  too,"  said  Gilbert. 


The  book  was  published  long  before  Gilbert's  play  was 
produced;  for  Sir  Geoffrey  Mundane  had  taken  fright  at 
Gilbert's  play.  He  was  afraid  that  it  was  too  clever,  too 
original,  too  much  above  their  heads,  and  so  forth.  "I'd 
like  to  produce  it,"  he  said.  "I'd  regard  it  as  an  honour 
to  be  allowed  to  produce  it,  but  the  Pall  Mall  is  a  very 
expensive  theatre  to  maintain  and  I  don't  mind  telling  you, 
Mr.  Farlow,  that  I  lost  money  on  that  last  piece,  too  much 
money,  and  I  must  retrieve  some  of  it.  Your  play  is  ex- 
cellent .  .  .  excellent  ...  in  fact,  it's  a  piece  of  litera- 
ture .  .  .  almost  Greek  in  its  form  .  .  .  Greek  .  .  .  yes,  I 
think,  Greek  .  .  .  remarkable  plays  those  were,  weren't 
they?  .  .  .  Have  you  seen  this  portrait  of  me  in  to-day's 
Daily  Reflexion  .  .  .  quite  jolly,  I  think  .  .  .  but  it  won't 
be  popular,  Mr.  Farlow,  and  I  must  put  on  something  that 
is  likely  to  be  popular!" 

Gilbert  found  Sir  Geoffrey's  sudden  changes  of  conver- 
sation curiously  interesting,  but  the  hint  of  disaster  to 


CHANGING  WINDS  2S6 

"The  Magic  Casement"  disturbed  him  too  much  to  let  his 
interest  absorb  him. 

"Then  you've  decided  not  to  do  the  play?"  he  said,  with 
a  throb  of  disappointment  in  his  voice. 

Sir  Geoffrey  rose  at  him,  fixing  his  eye-glass,  and  patted 
him  on  the  shoulder.  "No,  110,"  he  said.  "I  didn't  mean 
that.  I'll  produce  the  play  gladly  .  .  .  some  day  .  .  . 
but  not  just  at  present.  If  you  care  to  leave  it  with 
me " 

Gilbert  wondered  what  he  ought  to  say  next.  Sir  Geof- 
frey might  retain  the  play  for  a  year  or  two,  and  then  de- 
cide that  he  could  not  produce  it. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said,  "you'd  undertake  to  do  it  within 
a  certain  time.  ..."  He  wanted  to  add  that  Sir  Geoffrey 
should  undertake  to  pay  a  fine  if  he  failed  to  produce  the 
play  within  the  "certain  time,"  but  his  courage  was  not 
strong  enough.  He  was  afraid  that  Sir  Geoffrey  might  be 
offended  by  the  suggestion  and  return  the  play  at  once. 
He  wished  that  he  had  gone  to  Mr.  Redder,  as  Henry  had 
done,  and  asked  him  to  place  the  play  for  him.  "  Redder 'd 
stand  no  humbug,"  he  said  to  himself. 

Sir  Geoffrey  murmured  something  about  the  undesira- 
bility  of  committing  oneself,  and  added  that  Gilbert  should 
be  content  to  wait  for  a  year  without  any  legal  undertaking. 
"Of  course,"  he  said  magnanimously,  "if  you  can  place 
the  play  elsewhere,  don't  let  me  stand  in  your  way!"  but 
Gilbert,  alarmed,  hurriedly  said  that  he  would  be  glad  to 
leave  the  play  with  him  for  the  time  he  mentioned.  "I'd 
like  you  to  take  the  part  of  Rupert  Westlake,"  he  said.  "I 
don't  think  any  one  could  play  it  so  well  as  you  could!" 
and  Sir  Geoffrey,  still  responsive  to  flattery,  smiled  and 
said  he  would  be  delighted  to  create  the  part. 

The  play  which  he  produced  instead  of  "The  Magic 
Casement"  ran  for  six  weeks,  bringing  neither  profit  nor 
honour  to  Sir  Geoffrey,  who  began  to  lose  his  head,  with  the 
result  that  he  produced  another  play  which  was  a  greater 
failure  than  its  predecessor.     Then  came  a  revival  of  an 


236  CHANGING  WINDS 

old  play  which  had  a  moderate  amount  of  success,  and 
"I'll  do  your  play  next,"  he  said  to  Gilbert.  "I  shall 
certainly  do  your  play  next !" 

It  was  because  of  these  delays  in  the  production  of  * '  The 
Magic  Casement"  that  Henry's  novel,  "Drusilla,"  was  pub- 
lished much  earlier  than  the  play  was  performed.  He 
had  rewritten  it  so  extensively  that  it  was  almost  a  new 
novel,  very  different  from  the  manuscript  which  his  father 
had  read,  and  it  received  a  fair  number  of  reviews.  The 
critics  whose  judgment  he  valued,  praised  it  liberally,  but 
the  critics  whose  judgment  he  despised,  either  damned  it 
or  ignored  it.  Gilbert  said  it  was  splendid.  "There's 
still  some  Slop  in  it,"  he  said,  "but  it's  miles  better  than 
the  first  version."  Eoger  liked  it.  He  said,  "I  like  it, 
Quinny!"  and  that  was  all,  but  Henry  knew  that  his 
speech  was  considerable  praise.  Ninian's  praise  was  ex- 
travagant, and  he  was  almost  like  a  child  in  his  pleasure  at 
receiving  an  inscribed  copy  from  Henry.  He  spent  the 
better  part  of  an  afternoon  in  going  to  bookshops  and  ask- 
ing the  grossly  ignorant  assistants  why  they  had  not  got 
"Drusilla"  prominently  placed  in  the  window.  The  as- 
sistants were  not  humiliated  by  his  charge  of  gross  igno- 
rance, nor  were  they  impressed  by  his  statement  that  the 
Times  Literary  Supplement  had  described  the  book  as  '  *  re- 
markable." So  many  remarkable  books  are  published  in 
the  course  of  a  season  that  the  assistants  do  not  attempt  to 
remember  them ;  and  so  many  friends  of  remarkable  young 
authors  wish  to  know  why  the  works  of  these  remarkable 
young  men  are  not  stacked  in  the  window  that  the  assist- 
ants have  learned  to  look  listlessly  at  the  people  who  make 
the  demands.  Ninian  bought  three  copies  of  the  novel,  and 
sent  one  to  his  mother  and  one  to  the  Headmaster  of  Rum- 
pell's  and  one  to  his  uncle,  the  Dean  of  Exebury.  "That 
ought  to  help  the  sales,  Quinny!"  he  said.  "I  bought  'em 
in  three  different  shops,  and  I  stuffed  the  chaps  that  I'd 
been  to  other  places  to  get  it,  but  found  they  were  sold 
out!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  237 

''That'll  make  two  copies  Mrs,  Graham '11  have,"  Henry 
replied.     "I've  sent  one  to  her  to-day.  ..." 

"Well,  she  can  give  the  other  one  to  Mary,"  said  Ninian. 

The  book  was  not  a  success.  Including  the  number  sold 
to  the  libraries,  only  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  copies 
were  sold,  but  the  financial  failure  of  the  book  did  not 
greatly  depress  Henry,  for  he  had  the  praise  of  his  friends 
to  console  him.  His  father's  letter  had  heartened  him 
almost  as  much  as  the  review  in  the  Times.  "It's  great 
stuff, ^'  he  wrote,  "and  I'm  proud  of  you.  I  didn't  think 
you  could  improve  it  so  much  as  you  have  done.  Hurry 
up  and  do  another  one!" 

His  second  book,  "Broken  Spears,"  was  in  proof  before 
Sir  Geoffrey  Mundane  decided  to  produce  "The  Magic 
Casement,"  and  for  a  while  he  was  at  a  loose  end.  He 
could  not  think  of  a  subject  for  another  story,  although  he 
had  invented  a  good  title :  Turbulence.  He  sat  at  his  desk, 
forcing  himself  to  write  chapters  that  ended  ingloriously. 
He  wrote  pages  and  pages,  and  in  the  evening  threw  them 
into  the  wastepaper  basket.  "My  God,"  he  said  to  him- 
self one  morning,  when  he  had  been  sitting  at  his  desk 
for  over  an  hour  without  writing  a  word,  "I  believe  I've 
lost  the  power  to  write ! ' ' 

He  got  up,  terrified,  and  went  to  Gilbert's  room. 

"Hilloa,  bloke!"  said  Gilbert,  looking  round  at  him  as 
he  entered. 

"Are  you  busy,  Gilbert?"  he  asked. 

"I'm  kidding  myself  that  I  am,  but  between  ourselves, 
Quinny,  I'm  reading  Gerald  Luke's  last  book.  That 
chap's  a  poet.  He's  as  good  as  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson. 
Listen  to  this!  ..." 

But  Henry  did  not  wish  to  listen  to  Gerald  Luke 's  poems. 

"Gilbert,"  he  said,  "I  believe  I'm  done!" 

"Done?"  Gilbert  exclaimed,  putting  down  the  book  of 
poems. 

"Yes.     I  don 't  believe  I  shall  ever  do  another  book.  .  .  ." 

"Silly  ass!" 


238  CHANGING  WINDS 

**I  can't  think  of  anything.  My  mind's  like  pap.  I 
keep  on  writing  and  writing,  but  I  only  get  a  pile  of  words. 
That  was  bad  enough,  but  to-day  I  can't  write  at  all.  I 
simply  can't  write.  ..." 

''Haven't  you  got  a  theme?" 

"Vaguely,  yes,  but  the  thing  won't  come  to  life.  The 
people  lie  about  like  logs,  and  .  .  .  damn  them,  they  won't 
move!" 

"Look  here,"  said  Gilbert,  "I'm  tired  of  work.  Let's 
chuck  it  for  a  while.  You're  obviously  off  colour,  and  a 
holiday '11  do  you  good.  Let's  go  out  somewhere  for  the 
day  anyhow.  I've  a  first  night  this  evening.  We'll  wind 
up  with  that!" 

"What's  the  play?"  Henry  asked. 

"A  revival.  They're  bringing  Wilde's  'The  Ideal  Hus- 
band' on  at  the  St.  James's  again,"  Gilbert  answered. 
"Alexander's  very  good  in  it.  .  .  ." 

"That's  the  fashionable  theatre,  isn't  it?" 

Henry's  knowledge  of  London  was  still  very  limited,  and 
he  seldom  visited  the  theatre,  chiefly  because  Gilbert,  who 
had  to  visit  them  all,  spoke  of  the  English  drama  with  con- 
tempt. 

"Yes,"  Gilbert  replied.  "All  the  Jews  and  dukes  go 
there.  Suppose  we  go  for  a  row  on  the  Serpentine, 
Quinny  ?  You  can  pull  the  oars  for  an  hour.  It  '11  do  you 
no  end  of  good,  and  I'll  lie  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  and 
watch  you.  That'll  do  me  no  end  of  good.  Come  on, 
let's  get  out  of  this!" 


They  came  away  from  the  boathouse,  and  as  they  walked 
towards  Hyde  Park  Corner,  a  motor-car  drove  slowly  past 
them. 

"Who's  that?"  said  Henry,  as  Gilbert  raised  his  hat  to 
the  lady  who  was  seated  in  the  car. 

"Lady  Cecily  Jayne,"  Gilbert  answered. 


CHANGING  WINDS  239 

"Oh!  .  .  .  She's  very  beautiful." 

"Think  so?" 

"Yes." 

"I'll  introduce  you  to  her  to-night.  She's  certain  to  be 
at  the  theatre.  We  ought  to  make  certain  of  getting  a 
ticket  for  you,  Quinny.  Let's  go  down  to  the  theatre  and 
book  a  seat." 

They  came  out  of  the  Park  and  walked  down  Piccadilly 
to  St.  James's  Street  and  presently  turned  the  corner  of 
the  street  in  which  the  theatre  is  situated.  Henry  was  able 
to  secure  a  stall,  but  it  was  not  next  to  Gilbert's.  It  was  in 
the  last  row. 

"Never  mind,"  said  Gilbert,  "we  can  meet  between  the 
acts.  My  seat's  at  the  end  of  a  row,  and  you  can  easily 
get  out  of  yours.  If  Cecily 's  in  a  box,  she  '11  probably  ask 
us  to  stay  in  it.     She  likes  to  have  people  about  her!" 

Henry  wanted  to  talk  about  Lady  Cecily  to  Gilbert,  but 
the  tone  of  his  voice  as  he  said,  "She  likes  to  have  people 
about  her!"  prevented  him  from  doing  so.  It  was  odd,  he 
reflected,  that  Gilbert  had  never  confided  in  him  about  her, 
odder  still  that  there  had  been  no  talk  of  her  in  the  Blooms- 
bury  house  since  the  night  on  which  Henry  and  Ninian  had 
discussed  Gilbert's  outburst  of  anger  when  her  name  was 
mentioned.  Gilbert  could  be  very  secretive,  Henry 
thought.  .  .  . 

"She's  very  beautiful,"  he  said  aloud. 

Gilbert  nodded  his  head. 

"Very  beautiful!"  Henry  repeated. 

"You're  an  impressionable  young  fellow,  Quinny!"  said 
Gilbert.  "I  won't  call  you  'sloppy'  again  because  I'm 
tired  of  telling  you  that,  but  really  that's  what  you  are. 
You've  only  got  to  see  a  beautiful  woman  for  a  couple  of 
seconds  and  you  start  buzzing  round  her  like  a  bumble  bee. 
Of  course,  I'm  sloppy  myself.  We're  all  sloppy.  Damn 
it,  here  we  are,  two  healthy  young  fellows  who  ought  to  be 
working  hard,  and  we're  wasting  a  fine  morning  in  gab- 
bling about  women.  ..." 


240  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Not  women,  Gilbert!    Lady  Cecily!  ..." 

"Lady  Cecily!  Lady  Cecily!  ..."  lie  stopped  sud- 
denly and  turned  to  Henry.  "I  suppose  you  know  about 
her  and  me?"  he  said. 

"Very  little,"  Henry  answered. 

' '  Let 's  have  some  tea.  We  '11  go  in  here ! ' '  The  abrupt 
change  disconcerted  Henry  for  a  moment  or  two,  but  he 
followed  Gilbert  into  the  tea-shop. 

"I  can  see  you're  ready  to  fall  in  love  with  her,"  Gil- 
bert said,  as  they  drank  their  tea, 

"Don't  be  an  old  ass!"  Henry  replied,  feeling  confused. 

"She'll  ask  you  to  come  and  see  her,  and  you'll  waste 
a  lot  of  time  next  week  trying  to  meet  her.  ..." 

Henry  laughed  nervously.  "You're  rather  ridiculous, 
Gilbert,"  he  said.  "I've  never  seen  Lady  Cecily  before. 
I'm  just  interested  in  her  because  she's  so  beautiful. 
That's  natural  enough,  isn't  it?" 

"Oh,  yes,  it's  natural  enough,  and  Lady  Cecily  will  like 
your  interest  in  her  beauty!" 

The  bitterness  of  his  tone  was  remarkable.  Henry  felt, 
as  he  listened  to  him,  that  there  were  open  wounds.  .  .  . 

"Don't  call  her  Cecily  until  you've  known  her  two 
days,"  Gilbert  went  on.  "She's  very  particular  about  that 
sort  of  thing.  And  don't  fall  too  much  in  love.  It'll  take 
you  longer  to  get  over  it  than  it  took  me!" 

* '  I  hate  to  hear  you*  talking  like  that,  Gilbert.  Any- 
body'd  think  you  were  a  dried-up  old  rip.  You're  fright- 
fully cynical.  ..." 

"That's  because  I'm  so  young,  Quinny.  I'm  younger 
than  you  are,  you  know  ...  six  months  .  .  .  but  I  '11  grow 
up.  I  will  grow  up,  Quinny,  I  swear  I  will,  and  get  full 
of  the  milk  of  lovingkindness.  Pass  the  meringues.  They 
play  the  devil  with  my  inside,  but  I  like  them  and  I  don't 
care  .  .  .  only  Lord  help  the  actors  to-night!" 

"I  suppose  Lady  Cecily  got  tired  of  you,  Gilbert," 
Henry  said  deliberately.  He  felt  angry  with  him  and  tried 
to  hurt  him.    The  beauty  of  Lady  Cecily  had  filled  him 


CHANGING  WINDS  241 

with  longing  to  meet  and  know  her,  and  he  had  a  strange 
sense  of  jealousy  when  he  thought  of  Gilbert's  friendship 
with  her. 

"No,"  Gilbert  answered,  "I  don't  think  she  got  tired 
of  me.  I  think  she  still  cares  for  me  as  much  as  ever  she 
did!  .  .  ." 

"Damned  conceit!"  Henry  exclaimed,  laughing  to  cover 
the  jealousy  that  was  in  him. 

"Oh,  no,  Quinny,  not  really.  You'll  understand  that 
soon,  I  expect!"  He  pushed  his  tea-cup  away  from  him, 
and  sat  back  in  his  chair.  * '  I  suppose  it  is  caddish  to  talk 
of  her  like  this,"  he  went  on.  "One  ought  to  bear  one's 
wounds  in  silence  and  feel  no  resentment  at  all  .  .  .  but 
somehow  she  draws  out  the  caddish  part  of  me.  There  are 
women  like  that,  Quinny.  There's  a  nasty,  low,  mean 
streak  in  every  man,  I  don't  care  who  he  is,  and  some 
women  seem  to  find  it  very  easily.  Here,  let's  get  out  of 
this.  You  pay.  I've  had  a  sugary  bun  and  a  couple  of 
meringues.  ..." 


Later  in  the  evening  they  went  to  the  theatre  to- 
gether. As  they  walked  up  the  steps  into  the  entrance 
hall,  Henry  saw  Lady  Cecily  standing  in  a  small  group  of 
men  and  women  who  were  talking  and  laughing  very 
heartily. 

"There  she  is!"  he  whispered  to  Gilbert. 
"Who  is?" 
"Lady  Cecily!" 

"Oh,  so  she  is.    Let's  find  our  seats!" 
"Perhaps  you  could  catch  her  eye,  Gilbert.  ..." 
' '  Catch  my  grandmother ! ' '  said  Gilbert.    *  *  Come  on ! " 
But  if  Gilbert  were  not  willing  to  catch  Lady  Cecily's 
eye,  Lady  Cecily  was  very  willing  to  catch  his.     She  saw 
him  walking  towards  the  stalls,  and  she  left  her  group  of 


242  CHANGING  WINDS 

friends  and  went  over  to  him  and  touched  his  arm.  **Hil- 
loa,  Gilbert!"  she  said,  holding  her  hand  out  to  him.  "1 
thought  T  should  see  you  here  to-night ! ' ' 

She  spoke  in  louder  tones  than  most  women  speak,  and 
her  voice  sounded  as  if  it  were  full  of  laughter.  There 
was  something  in  her  attitude  which  stirred  Henry,  some- 
thing which  vaguely  reminded  him  of  a  proud  animal, 
stretching  its  limbs  after  sleep.  Her  thick,  golden  hair, 
cunningly  bound  about  her  head,  glistened  in  the  softened 
light,  and  he  could  almost  see  golden,  downy  gleams  on  her 
cheeks.  She  held  her  skirts  about  her,  as  she  stood  in 
front  of  Gilbert,  and  Henry  could  see  her  curving  breasts 
rising  and  falling  very  gently  beneath  her  silken  dress. 
The  odour  of  some  disturbing  perfume  floated  from  her.  . .  . 
He  moved  a  step  nearer  to  her,  wondering  why  Gilbert  did 
not  smile  at  her  nor  show  any  signs  of  pleasure  at  meeting 
her.  It  seemed  to  him  to  be  impossible  for  any  one  but 
the  most  curmudgeonly  of  men  to  behave  so  ungraciously 
to  so  beautiful  a  woman,  or  to  resist  her  radiant  smiles. 
She  turned  to  him  as  he  moved  towards  her,  and  he  saw 
that  her  eyes  were  grey.  He  heard  Gilbert  mumbling  the 
introduction. 

"So  glad!"  she  said,  shaking  hands  with  him.  He  had 
expected  her  to  bow  to  him,  and  had  not  been  prepared  for 
the  offer  of  her  hand.  He  inwardly  cursed  his  clumsiness 
as  he  changed  his  gesture.  "I  saw  you  in  the  Park  with 
Gilbert  this  afternoon,  didn't  I?"  she  added. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  and  could  say  no  more.  Shyness 
had  fallen  on  him,  and  he  stood  before  her,  grinning  fatu- 
ously, and  twisting  a  button  on  his  waistcoat,  but  unable  to 
speak.  "Yes,"  he  said,  after  a  while,  "I  was  with  Gilbert 
in  the  Park  this  afternoon!" 

"Speak  up,  you  fool!"  he  was  saying  to  himself. 
"Here's  the  loveliest  woman  you've  ever  met  waiting  for 
you  to  speak  to  her,  and  all  you  can  do  is  to  repeat  her 
phrases  as  if  you  were  a  newly-breeched  brat  aping  its  par- 
ent.   Speak  up,  you  fool!  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  243 

He  felt  his  face  turning  red  and  hot.  Almost  before  he 
knew  what  he  was  saying  his  tongue  began  to  wag,  and  he 
heard  himself  saying,  in  a  stiff,  stilted  voice,  "It  w^as  very 
nice  in  the  Park  this  afternoon!  ..."  Oh,  banal  fool,  he 
thought,  she  will  despise  you  now,  as  if  you  were  a  great, 
gawky  lout.  .  .  . 

She  turned  away  from  him,  and  spoke  to  Gilbert.  '  *  I  've 
been  at  Dulbury,"  she  said,  "for  six  weeks.  That's  where 
I  got  all  this  brown!  ..."  She  laughed  and  pointed  to 
her  cheeks.  "  I  'm  so  glad  to  get  back.  The  country  bores 
me  stiff.  Nothing  to  see  but  the  scenery.  Oh  dear ! ' '  She 
almost  yawned  at  her  remembrance  of  the  country.  "And 
things  are  always  biting  me  or  stinging  me.  I  'm  miserable 
all  the  time  I  'm  there ! ' ' 

"Then  why  do  you  go?"  said  Gilbert. 

"Jimphy  wanted  to  go.  Jimphy  thinks  it's  his  duty 
to  show  himself  to  the  tenants  now  and  again.  It's  the 
only  return  he  can  make,  poor  dear,  for  all  that  rent  they 
pay!" 

Gilbert  said  "Hm!"  and  then  turned  to  go  to  the 
stalls.  "It's  Jimphy 's  birthday  to-day,"  she  said,  and  he 
turned  to  her  again.  "That's  why  we're  here  to-night. 
Together,  I  mean.  He 's  treating  me  to  a  box.  Come  round 
and  talk  to  us,  Gilbert,  after  the  first  act  .  .  .  and  you,  too, 
Mr.  ...  Mr!  .  .  ." 

She  fumbled  over  his  name.  Gilbert,  as  is  the  custom 
in  England  when  introducing  people,  had  spoken  the  name 
so  indistinctly  that  she  had  not  heard  it. 

* '  Quinn ! "  he  said. 

"Of  course,"  she  replied.  "Mr.  Quinn.  I'm  awfully 
stupid  about  names.     You'll  come,  too?" 

"I  should  like  to!" 

"Do.  Gilbert,  don't  forget.  Jimphy 's  very  morose  this 
evening.  He's  thirty-one  to-day,  and  he  thinks  that  old 
age  is  creeping  over  him ! ' ' 

"All  right,"  said  Gilbert  gloomily,  and  then  he  and 
Henry  went  to  their  seats. 


tU  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Who  is  Jimphy?"  said  Henry,  as  they  walked  down 
the  stairs  into  the  auditorium. 

"Her  husband.  Didn't  you  notice  something  hanging 
around  in  the  vestibule  while  we  were  talking  to  her  ? ' ' 

' '  No.     There  were  so  many  people  about ! ' ' 

"Well,  if  you  had  noticed  something  hanging  around, 
that  would  have  been  Jimphy.  His  real  name  is  Jasper, 
but  Cecily  never  calls  any  one  by  his  real  name  .  .  .  except 
me.     She  can't  think  of  a  name  for  me!" 

They  entered  the  auditorium  and  stood  for  a  moment 
looking  about  the  theatre.  People  were  passing  quickly 
into  their  seats  now,  and  the  theatre  was  full  of  an  eager 
air,  of  massed  pleasure,  and  a  loud  buzz  of  conversation 
spread  over  the  stalls  from  the  pit  where  rows  of  young 
women  whispered  to  each  other  excitedly  as  this  well-known 
person  and  that  well-known  person  entered. 

"That's  'er,  that's  'er!"  one  girl  said  in  a  frenzied  whis- 
per to  her  companion. 

"Viola  Tree?"  the  other  girl,  gazing  vacantly  into  the 
stalls,  replied. 

"No,  silly!    Ellen  Terry!    Clap,  can't  you?" 

And  they  clapped  their  hands  as  the  actress  went  to  her 
seat. 

There  was  more  clapping  when  Sir  Charles  Wyndham 
came  in  and  took  his  seat. 

"Is  it  Viola  Tree?"  the  girl  repeated. 

"No,  silly.  It's  Wyndham.  Bray-vo!  Seventy,  if  'e's 
a  day,  an'  don't  look  it.  My  word,  I  am  en  joy  in'  myself, 
I  can  tell  you!  Everybody's  'ere  to-night.  Of  course,  it's 
St.  James's,  of  course!  ..." 

Popular  criminal  lawyers  came  in  and  sat  next  to  racing 
marquises;  and  lords  and  ladies  mingled  with  actresses 
who  very  ostentatiously  accompanied  their  mothers.  A  few 
men  of  letters  and  a  crowd  of  dramatic  critics,  depressed, 
unenthusiastie  men,  leavened  the  mass  of  the  semi-great. 
The  rest  were  the  children  of  Israel. 


CHANGING  WINDS  245 

"Jews  to  the  right  of  us,  Jews  to  the  left  of  us!  .  .  ." 
Gilbert  said. 

"Anti-Semite!"  Henry  replied. 

"Only  in  practice,  Quinny,  not  in  theory.  I'll  see  you 
at  the  interval!" 

"If  you  nip  out  of  your  seat  as  the  curtain  goes  down," 
said  Henry,  "we  can  both  get  up  to  her  box  before  the 
rush!  .  .  ." 

"There  won't  be  any  rush." 

*  *  Well,  anyhow,  we  can  get  up  to  the  box  pretty  quickly ! ' ' 

Gilbert  walked  away  without  replying,  and  Henry  sat 
back  in  his  seat  and  watched  the  boxes  so  that  he  might 
see  Lady  Cecily  the  moment  she  entered.  His  stall  was 
in  the  last  row,  against  the  first  row  of  the  pit,  and  the  girls 
who  had  applauded  Miss  Terry  and  Sir  Charles  Wynd- 
ham  were  still  identifying  the  fashionable  people. 

' '  I  tell  you  it  is  'im, ' '  said  the  more  assertive  of  the  two. 

"I  sawr  'is  picture  in  the  Daily  Reflexion  the  time  that 
feller  .  .  .  wot's  'is  name  .  .  .  the  one  that  'anged  all  'is 
wives  in  the  coal-cellar  .  .  .  you  know!  ..." 

' '  I  know, ' '  the  other  girl  replied.  *  *  'Orrible  case,  I  call 
it!" 

"Well,  'e  defended  'im.  I  sawr  'is  picture  in  the  Daily 
Reflexion  myself.  Very  'andsome  man,  eh?  They  do 
say!  .  .  ." 

Lady  Cecily  came  into  her  box,  followed  by  her  husband, 
and  Henry  looked  steadily  up  at  her  in  the  hope  that  she 
would  see  him,  but  she  did  not  glance  in  his  direction.  He 
could  see  that  she  had  found  Gilbert  in  the  audience,  but 
Gilbert  was  not  looking  at  her.  An  odd  sensation  of  jeal- 
ousy ran  through  him.  He  suddenly  resented  her  famil- 
iarity with  Gilbert.  He  remembered  that  she  had  called 
him  by  his  Christian  name,  that  she  distinguished  between 
him  and  other  men  by  calling  him  by  his  proper  name,  and 
not  by  some  fanciful  perversion  of  it.  If  only  she  would 
call  him  by  his  Christian  name !  .  .  . 


246  CHANGING  WINDS 

She  was  leaning  on  the  edge  of  the  box,  and  looking  about 
the  auditorium. 

"That's  Lydy  Cecily  Jyne!"  he  heard  the  assertive  girl 
behind  him  saying. 

'"Oo?" 

* '  Lydy  Cecily  Jyne.     Tou  know ! " 

Her  husband  leant  back  in  his  seat,  stifling  a  yawn  as  he 
did  so,  and  Henry  saw  that  he  was  a  faded,  insignificant- 
looking  man  whose  head  sloped  so  sharply  that  it  seemed 
to  be  galloping  away  from  his  forehead;  but  he  did  not 
pay  much  attention  to  him.  His  eyes  were  fixed  on  Lady 
Cecily. 

"A  bit  'ot,  she  is,"  the  girl  behind  him  was  saying. 
**Well,  I  mean  to  say!  .  .  ." 

But  what  she  meant  to  say,  Henry  neither  knew  nor 
cared.  The  lights  in  the  theatre  were  lowered,  leaving  only 
the  bright,  warm  glow  of  the  footlights  on  the  heavy  cur- 
tain. He  could  see  Lady  Cecily's  face  still  golden  and 
glowing  even  in  the  darkness. 

"My  dear,"  said  the  girl  behind  him,  "the  things  I've 
'card  .  .  .  well,  they'd  fill  a  book!" 

Then  the  curtain  went  up  and  the  play  began. 

He  saw  her  leaning  forward  eagerly  to  watch  the  stage, 
and  presently  he  heard  her  laughing  at  some  piece  of  wit 
in  the  play :  a  clear,  joyful  laugh ;  and  as  she  laughed,  she 
turned  for  a  few  moments  and  gazed  into  the  darkened 
theatre.  Her  beautiful  eyes  seemed  to  him  to  be  shining 
stars,  and  he  imagined  that  she  was  looking  straight  at 
him.  He  smiled  at  her,  and  then  jeered  at  himself.  "Of 
course,  she  can't  see  me,"  he  said. 

He  tried  to  interest  himself  in  the  traffic  of  the  stage, 
but  his  thoughts  continually  wandered  to  the  woman  in 
the  box  above  him. 

"She's  the  loveliest  woman  I've  ever  seen,"  he  said  to 
himself. 


THE  FIFTH  CHAPTER 

1 

She  turned  to  greet  them  as  they  entered  the  box.  "Come 
and  sit  beside  me,  Gilbert!"  she  said.  "Mr.  Quinn  .  .  , 
oh,  you  don't  know  Jimphy,  do  you?"  She  introduced 
Henry  to  her  husband  who  mumbled  "How  do!"  in  a 
sulky  voice,  and  stood  against  the  wall  of  the  box  twisting 
his  moustache.  The  shyness  which  had  enveloped  Henry 
in  the  vestibule  of  the  theatre  still  clung  about  him,  and  he 
felt  awkward  and  tongue-tied.  Lord  Jasper  Jayne  did  not 
help  Henry  to  get  rid  of  his  shyness.  There  was  a  "Who- 
the-devil-are-you  ? ' '  look  about  him  that  made  easy  conver- 
sation impossible  and  any  conversation  difficult.  Lady 
Cecily  was  chatting  to  Gilbert  as  if  she  had  been  saving  up 
all  her  conversation  for  a  month  past  exclusively  for  his 
ears ;  and  Henry  could  hear  a  recurrent  phrase.  ..."  But, 
Gilbert,  it's  ages  since  you've  been  to  see  me,  and  you  know 
I  like  you  to  come !  ..."  that  jangled  his  temper  and  made 
him  feel  savage  towards  his  friend.  .  .  . 

He  made  an  effort  to  be  chatty  with  Lord  Jasper.  *  *  How 
do  you  like  the  play?"  he  said,  as  pleasantly  as  he  could, 
for  it  was  not  easy  to  be  chatty  with  Lord  Jasper,  whose 
coarse,  flat  features  roused  a  sensation  of  repulsion  in 
Henry. 

"  I  don 't  like  it, ' '  he  replied.     '  *  Rotten  twaddle ! ' ' 

"Oh!"  Henry  exclaimed. 

There  did  not  appear  to  be  anything  more  to  say,  nor 
did  Lord  Jasper  seem  anxious  to  continue  the  conversa- 
tion: but  just  when  it  appeared  that  the  effort  to  be 
pleasantly  chatty  was  likely  to  be  abortive,  Lord  Jasper 

247 


U8  CHANGING  WINDS 

suddenly  walked  towards  the  door  of  the  box.  "Come 
and  have  a  drink!"  he  said. 

Henry  did  not  wish  to  go  and  have  a  drink,  and  he 
paused  irresolutely  until  Lady  Cecily  suddenly  leant  for- 
ward and  said  with  a  laugh,  "Yes,  do  go  with  Jimphy,  Mr. 
Quinn.  Gilbert  and  I  have  such  a  lot  to  say  to  each  other, 
and  Jimphy 's  not  in  a  good  temper.  Are  you,  Jimphy, 
dear?  You  see,"  she  went  on,  "he  wanted  to  go  to  the 
Empire,  but  I  made  him  bring  me  here !  ...  Do  cheer  up, 
Jimphy,  dear!    Smile  for  the  company!  ..." 

Lord  Jasper  opened  the  door  of  the  box  and  went  out, 
and  Henry,  raging  inwardly,  followed  him.  Before  he 
had  quite  shut  the  door  again.  Lady  Cecily  had  turned  to 
Gilbert.  Her  hand  was  on  his  sleeve,  and  she  was  saying, 
"But  Gilbert,  darling!  ..."  He  shut  the  door  quickly 
and  almost  ran  after  Lord  Jasper.  She  was  in  love  with 
Gilbert,  and  Gilbert  was  in  love  with  her.  A  woman  would 
not  put  her  hand  so  affectionately  on  a  man's  arm  and  call 
him  *  *  Gilbert,  darling ! "  if  she  were  not  in  love  with  him. 
She  had  wished  to  be  alone  with  Gilbert  ...  had  prac- 
tically turned  him  out  of  the  box  so  that  she  might  be  alone 
with  Gilbert  .  .  .  had  not  waited  for  him  to  close  the  door 
before  she  began  to  fondle  him  .  .  .  and  Gilbert  had  spoken 
so  bitterly  of  her !  .  .  . 

He  followed  on  the  heels  of  Lord  Jasper,  passing  through 
a  throng  of  men  in  the  passages  and  on  the  stairs,  until 
he  reached  the  bar.  "Whisky  and  soda?"  said  Lord 
Jasper,  and  Henry  nodded  his  head. 

"I  hate  theatres,"  Lord  Jasper  said. 

"Oh!"  Henry  replied. 

That  seemed  to  be  the  only  adequate  retort  to  make  to 
anything  that  Jimphy  said. 

"Yes,  I  can't  stand  'em.  Cecily  let  me  in  to-night  .  .  . 
on  a  chap 's  birthday,  too.  She  might  have  chosen  the  Em- 
pire!" 

"You  like  music-halls  then?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  249 

* 'They're  all  right.  Better  than  theatres  anyhow.  I 
like  to  see  girls  dancing  and  .  .  .  and  ...  all  that  kind  of 
thing!" 

A  bell  rang,  warning  them  that  the  second  act  was  about 
to  begin. 

"I  suppose  we  ought  to  go  back,"  said  Ilenry,  putting 
his  glass  down.  He  had  barely  touched  the  whisky  and 
soda. 

"No  hurry,"  Lord  Jasper  replied.  "No  hurry.  And 
you  haven't  drunk  your  whisky?  Cecily's  quite  happy 
with  that  chap,  Farlow.  ...  I  don't  like  him  myself  .  .  . 
oh,  I  say,  he's  a  pal  of  yours,  isn't  he?  Well,  it  doesn't 
matter  now.  I  don't  like  him,  and  he  doesn't  like  me. 
I  know  he  doesn't.  I  can  always  tell  a  chap  doesn't  like 
me  because  I  generally  don't  like  him.  Have  another,  will 
you?" 

Henry  shook  his  head. 

"I  think  we  ought  to  be  getting  back,"  he  said,  "I  hate 
disturbing  people  after  the  curtain's  gone  up!" 

"You  don't  want  to  see  that  rotten  play,  do  you?  Look 
here  .  .  .  I  've  forgotten  your  name !     Sorry !  .  .  . " 

"Quinn.     Henry  Quinn!" 

"Oh,  Quinn!    You're  not  English,  are  you?" 

"I'm  Irish." 

"Are  you?  That's  damn  funny!  Well,  anyhow,  what 
I  was  going  to  say  was  this.  You  don't  want  to  see  this 
rotten  play,  do  you?" 

"I  do  rather!  .  .  ." 

"No,  you  don't,  Quinn.  No,  you  don't.  And  I  don't 
want  to  see  it,  either.  Very  well,  then,  what's  to  prevent 
you  and  me  going  to  the  Empire  together,  eh?  We  can 
come  back  for  Cecily!  ..." 

Henry  stared  at  Lord  Jasper.  "But  we  can't  do  that," 
he  protested. 

"Oh,  yes  we  can.  Cecily  won't  mind.  She'll  be  glad. 
We'll  go  and  tell  her  .  .  .  and  look  here,  Quinn,  I'll  intro- 


250  CHANGING  WINDS 

duce  you  to  a  girl  I  know  .  .  .  very  nice  girl  .  .  .  perfect 
lady  .  .  .  lives  with  her  mother  as  a  matter  of  fact  .  .  . 
Eh?" 

"I'd  much  rather  see  the  play!" 

*  *  Oh,  all  right, ' '  Lord  Jasper  said  sulkily.     ' '  All  right ! ' ' 

Henry  moved  towards  the  door  of  the  bar,  but  Lord 
Jasper  made  no  attempt  to  follow  him.  ** Aren't  you  com- 
ing?" he  said,  pausing  at  the  door. 

"No,"  Lord  Jasper  replied.  "I  don't  want  to  see  the 
damn  play.  I  shall  have  another  drink,  and  then  I  shall 
go  to  the  Empire  by  myself.  You  better  go  back  to  Cecily 
and  .  .  .  and  that  chap  Farlow.  She  won 't  notice  I  'm  not 
there!" 

"You'd  better  come  and  tell  her  yourself,  hadn't  you?" 
Henry  said. 

Lord  Jasper  deliberated  with  himself  for  a  few  moments. 

"All  right,"  he  said.  "I  will.  I'll  come  presently. 
You  tell  her,  will  you,  that  I'll  come  presently.  P'raps 
you'll  change  your  mind,  Quinn,  and  come  with  me  to  the 
Empire  after  you've  had  another  dose  of  this  damn  play. 
A  chap  doesn't  want  to  see  a  play  on  a  chap's  birth- 
day! ..." 

It  occurred  to  Henry  that  Lord  Jasper  Jayne  was 
slightly  drunk.  He  had  swallowed  the  second  whisky  and 
soda  rather  more  expeditiously  than  he  had  swallowed  the 
first,  and  no  doubt  he  had  dined  well.  There  was  a  bleary 
look  in  his  eyes  that  signified  a  heated  brain.  .  .  . 

"My  God,"  Henry  said  to  himself,  "that  beautiful 
woman  married  to  this  .  .  .  this  swine!" 

"I'm  thirty-one  to-day,  ole  f 'la,"  Lord  Jasper  continued, 
coming  over  to  Henry  and  taking  hold  of  his  arm. 
"Thirty-one.  I'm  getting  on  in  years,  ole  f 'la,  that's  what 
I'm  doing  .  .  .  sere  and  yellow,  so  to  speak  .  .  .  and  a 
chap  my  age  doesn  't  want  to  be  bothered  with  a  damn  play. 
He  wants  something  .  .  .  something  substansl!  ..."  He 
fumbled  over  the  word  "substantial"  and  then  fell  on  it. 


CHANGING  WINDS  251 

** Something  substansl,"  he  repeated.  "Now,  if  you  come 
with  me!  .  .  ." 

' '  I  say,  you  mustn  't  talk  so  loudly, ' '  Henry  warned  him. 
**The  curtain's  gone  up,  and  you'll  distiirb  people.  ..." 

"All  right,  ole  f'la,  all  right.  I  won't  say  another 
word!" 

They  stumbled  along  the  passages  to  the  door  of  the 
box,  and  entered  as  quietly  as  they  could. 

"We  thought  you'd  got  lost,"  said  Lady  Cecily,  smiling 
at  Henry. 

"No  ...  no,"  he  replied,  "we  didn't  get  lost!" 


Gilbert  was  sitting  in  the  seat  where  Jimphy  had  sat 
earlier  in  the  evening.  "Gilbert  is  going  to  stay  here," 
said  Lady  Cecily.    *  *  Won 't  you  stay,  too,  JMr.  Quinn ! ' ' 

"Won't  I  be  crowding  you?  .  .  ."he  said. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  replied.  "Jimphy  doesn't  want  to  see 
the  play  anyhow,  and  he'll  be  quite  happy  if  he  has  some 
one  to  talk  to  in  the  bar  between  the  acts!  .  .  ." 

He  felt  the  blood  rushing  violently  to  his  head,  and  in 
his  anger  he  almost  got  up  and  walked  out  of  the  box. 
That  she  should  use  him  to  keep  her  sottish  husband  enter- 
tained while  she  made  love  to  Gilbert,  filled  him  with  a 
sensation  that  came  near  to  hatred  of  her.  Gilbert  had 
not  spoken  since  they  returned  to  the  box,  but  it  was  clear 
from  his  manner  that  there  had  been  love-making.  .  .  . 
He  crushed  down  his  anger,  and  stood  behind  Lady  Cecily 
while  the  play  went  on.  Her  bare  shoulders  had  a  soft, 
warm  look,  in  the  subdued  light  ...  he  was  conscious  of 
beautifully  shaped  ears  nestling  in  golden  hair  .  .  .  and 
the  anger  in  him  began  to  die.  Once  she  moved  slightly 
in  her  seat,  and  looked  round  as  if  she  wanted  to  speak. 
He  leant  over  her. 

"Do  you  want  anything?"  he  asked. 


252  CHANGING  WINDS 

"My  wrap,"  she  said. 

He  picked  up  the  flimsy  wrap  and  put  it  about  her 
shoulders,  and  she  turned  to  him  and  smiled  and  said, 
* '  Thank  you ! ' '  and  instantly  all  the  anger  in  him  perished. 
He  had  admired  her  before,  admired  her  ardently,  but  now 
he  knew  that  he  loved  her,  must  love  her  always.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  sound  of  heavy  breathing,  and  he  turned  to 
look  at  Jimphy. 

"Wake  him  up,"  said  Lady  Cecily  in  a  whisper.  "Poor 
dear,  he  always  goes  to  sleep  when  he's  annoyed!" 

He  tiptoed  across  the  box  and  shook  the  sleeper's  arm. 

"Eh?  What  is  it?"  Lord  Jasper  said,  as  he  opened  his 
eyes  and  gaped  about  him,  and  then,  as  he  became  con- 
scious of  his  surroundings,  he  said,  "Is  it  over  yet ? ' ' 

"No.    The  second  act  isn't  finished  yet!" 

*  *  Oh,  Lord ! "  he  groaned. 

"It'll  be  over  in  a  few  minutes!" 

"Thank  God!  I  can't  stick  plays  .  .  .  not  this  sort 
anyhow.  I  don't  mind  a  musical  comedy  now  and  again, 
although  I  think  you  can  have  too  much  of  that.  ..." 

Lady  Cecily  turned  and  waved  her  hand  at  her  husband. 
*  *  Ssh,  Jimphy ! '  *  she  whispered.  *  *  You  're  making  a  fright- 
ful row!" 

The  second  act  ended  soon  afterwards,  and  Lord  Jasper 
scrambled  to  his  feet  ...  he  had  been  sitting  on  the 
ground  at  the  back  of  the  box,  yawning  and  yawning  .  .  . 
and  made  for  the  door.  *  *  Come  and  have  a  drink,  Quinn ! ' ' 
he  said. 

' '  No,  thanks, ' '  Henry  replied. 

"Come  on.    Be  a  sport!" 

"Do  go  with  him,  Mr.  Quinn,  please,"  Lady  Cecily  said. 
"He's  sure  to  get  lost  or  troublesome  or  something.  Aren't 
you,  Jimphy  dear  ? ' ' 

"Aren't  I  what?" 

"Aren't  you  sure  to  get  lost  or  troublesome  or  some- 
thing!" 

Lord  Jasper  did  not  reply  to  his  wife.    "Come  along, 


CHANGING  WINDS  253 

Quinn !"  he  said,     ''Cecily  thinks  she's  being  comic !  .  .  ." 

Henry  hesitated  for  a  moment  or  two.  He  did  not  wish 
to  go  to  the  bar,  and  he  was  sick  of  the  sight  of  Lord  Jasper. 
He  wished  very  much  to  stay  with  Lady  Cecily,  and  he 
felt  hurt  because  she  had  urged  him  to  accompany  her  hus- 
band. He  would  have  to  do  as  she  had  asked  him,  of 
course.  .  .  .  While  he  hesitated,  Gilbert  got  up  quickly 
from  his  seat  and  went  to  the  door  of  the  box.  * '  I  '11  come 
with  you,  Jimphy!"  he  said,  and  then,  almost  pushing 
Lord  Jasper  in  front  of  him,  he  went  out,  closing  the  door 
of  the  box  behind  him.  Henry  stared  at  the  door  for  a 
second  or  two,  nonplussed  by  the  swiftness  of  Gilbert's 
action,  and  then  he  turned  to  Lady  Cecily.  A  look  of  vex- 
ation on  her  face  instantly  disappeared  and  she  smiled  at 
Henry. 

"Come  and  sit  here,"  she  said,  "and  tell  me  all  about 
yourself.  I  haven 't  really  got  to  know  you,  have  I  ?  Gil- 
bert says  you're  Irish!" 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  sitting  down. 

"How  jolly!"  she  said. 

"Do  you  think  so?" 

"Oh,  yes.  It's  supposed  to  be  awfully  jolly  to  be  Irish. 
All  the  Irish  people  in  books  seem  to  be  very  amused  about 
something.  I  suppose  it's  the  climate.  They  say  there's 
a  great  deal  of  rain  in  Ireland.  ..." 

"Yes,"  he  answered  vaguely,  "there  is  some  sometimes!" 

She  questioned  him  about  Gilbert  and  Ninian  Graham 
and  Roger  Carey. 

"It  must  be  awfully  jolly,"  she  said,  "to  be  living  to- 
gether like  that,  you  four  men ! ' ' 

He  noticed  that  Lady  Cecily  always  spoke  of  things  being 
"awfully  jolly"  and  wondered  why  her  vocabulary  should 
be  so  limited  in  its  expressions  of  pleasure. 

"We  get  on  very  well  together,"  he  replied,  "and  it's 
very  lively  at  times.    Gilbert's  very  lively.  ..." 

"Is  he?"  she  said.  "He  always  seems  so  ...  so  ..  * 
well,  not  lively.    I  don't  mean  that  he's  solemn  or  pom- 


254  CHANGING  WINDS 

pous,  buthe'sso  .  .  .  so  anxious  to  have  his  own  way,  if  you 
understand  me.  Now,  I'm  not  like  that!"  She  broke  off 
and  laughed.  **  Oh,  I  don 't  quite  mean  that.  I  am  selfish. 
I  know  I  am.  I  love  having  my  own  way,  but  if  I  can't 
have  a  thing  just  as  I  want  it  .  .  .  well,  I'm  content  to 
have  it  in  the  way  that  I  can.    Now,  do  you  understand?" 

Henry  nodded  his  head. 

''Gilbert  isn't  like  me,"  she  continued.  "He  says  to 
himself,  'I  must  have  this  thing  exactly  in  this  way.  If  I 
can't  have  it  exactly  in  this  way,  then  I  won't  have  it  at 
all!*  and  it's  so  silly  of  him  to  behave  like  that!" 

Henry  looked  up  at  her  in  a  puzzled  fashion.  "What  is 
it  he  wants?  ...  I  beg  your  pardon,  I'm  being  imperti- 
nent!" 

"Oh,  no!"  she  replied,  smiling  graciously  at  him.  "He 
wants  ...  oh,  he  wants  everything  like  that.  Haven't 
you  noticed?" 

"No,"  Henry  answered,  "I  haven't." 

"Well,  you  will  some  day.  My  motto  is,  Take  what  you 
can  get  in  the  way  you  can  get  it.  It's  so  much  easier  to 
live  if  you  act  on  that  principle!" 

"Gilbert's  an  artist.  Lady  Cecily,  and  he  can't  act  on 
that  principle.  No  artist  can.  He  takes  what  he  wants  in 
the  way  that  he  wants  it  or  else  he  will  not  take  it  at 
all!" 

"Exactly.  That's  what  I've  been  saying.  And  it's  so 
silly.    But  never  mind.    He 's  young  yet,  and  he  '11  learn ! ' ' 

She  turned  to  gaze  at  the  audience,  and  Henry,  not  know- 
ing what  else  to  do  and  having  no  more  to  say,  looked  too. 
He  could  think  of  plenty  of  fine  things  to  say  to  her,  but  he 
could  not  get  them  on  to  his  tongue.  He  wanted  to  teli 
her  that  he  had  scarcely  heard  a  word  of  what  was  said  in 
the  first  act  of  the  play  because  he  had  filled  his  mind  with 
thoughts  of  her,  and  had  spent  most  of  the  time  in  gazing 
up  at  her  as  she  sat  leaning  on  the  ledge  of  her  box;  but 
when  he  tried  to  speak,  his  mouth  seemed  to  be  parched  and 
his  tongue  would  not  move. 


CHANGING  WINDS  256 


"Do  you  like  this  play?"  she  asked. 

"No,"  he  replied. 

"Why?  I  thought  everybody  admired  Wilde's  wit 
It's  clever,  isn't  it?" 

"I  don't  like  it!" 

"But  it's  supposed  to  be  awfully  clever!"  she  insisted. 

"It's  a  common  melodrama  with  bits  of  wit  and  epi- 
gram stuck  on  to  it!"  Henry  answered. 

"Oh,  really!" 

"The  wit  isn't  natural  ...  it  doesn't  grow  naturally 
out  of  the  life  of  the  play,  I  mean.  It's  stuck  on  like  .  .  . 
like  plaster  images  on  the  front  of  a  house.  The  witty 
speeches  aren't  spontaneous  .  .  .  they  don't  come  inevit- 
ably! ...  I'm  afraid  I'm  not  making  myself  very  clear, 
but  anyhow,  I  don't  like  the  play.  I  don't  like  anything 
Wilde  wrote,  except  'The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,'  and 
even  that's  not  true.  That's  really  why  I  dislike  his  work. 
It  isn't  true,  any  of  it.     It's  all  lies.  ..." 

"How  awfully  interesting!" 

"Do  you  know  'The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol*?  he  asked. 

"No.  .  .  .  Oh,  yes!  I  have  read  it.  Of  course,  I  have. 
Somebody  lent  it  to  me  or  I  bought  it  or  something.  .  .  . 
Anyhow,  I  have  read  it,  but  I  can 't  remember.  ..." 

"Do  you  remember  the  lines?  .  .  . 

For  all  men  kill  the  thing  they  love, 
But  all  men  do  not  die." 

"I  seem  to  remember  something  ..."  she  said  vaguely. 

"Well,  that's  a  lie.  All  men  don't  kill  the  thing  they 
love.  Wilde  couldn't  help  lying  even  when  he  was  most 
sincere ! ' ' 

"That's  awfully  interesting,"  Lady  Cecily  said.  "Do 
you  know  I've  never  thought  of  that  before.  Won't  you 
come  and  see  me  one  afternoon,  Mr.  Quinn?" 


256  CHANGING  WINDS 

"I  should  like  to,"  he  said,  and  as  he  spoke,  the  door  of 
the  box  opened  and  Gilbert  entered,  followed  by  Lord 
Jasper. 

Lady  Cecily  turned  eagerly  to  Gilbert.  "Oh,  Gilbert," 
she  said,  "Mr.  Quinn  promised  to  come  and  see  me  one 
afternoon.  You'll  bring  him,  won't  you?  Come  on 
"Wednesday,  both  of  you!" 

"I  should  like  to,"  Henry  murmured  again. 

"I  don't  think  I  can  come  on  Wednesday,"  Gilbert  said. 

"Oh,  yes,  you  can,"  Lady  Cecily  exclaimed,  "and  if 
you  can 't,  you  can  come  some  other  day.  You  '11  come,  Mr. 
Quinn,  won 't  you  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  Lady  Cecily!  ..." 

"And.  .  .  .  Jimphy,  dear,  do  be  nice  and  ask  them  to 
come  to  supper  with  us  after  the  play.  We're  going  to 
the  Savoy  afterwards.  I  thought  it  would  please  Jimphy 
to  go  there  because  he  'd  be  sure  not  to  like  the  play.  ..." 

"Yes,  you  come  along,  you  chaps!"  Jimphy  said,  will- 
ingly. 

"I  can't.  I'm  sorry,"  Gilbert  replied.  "I've  got  to 
go  down  to  Fleet  Street  and  write  a  notice  of  this  play!" 

"Can't  you  put  it  off  for  once,  Gilbert!"  Lady  Cecily 
said. 

Gilbert  laughed.  "I  should  like  to  see  Dilton's  face 
if  I  were  to  do  that.  ..." 

"Dilton!    Dilton!!    Who  is  Dilton?"  she  demanded. 

"My  editor.  Very  devoted  to  the  human  note,  Dilton 
is.  No,  Cecily,  I'm  sorry,  but  I  must  go  down  to  Fleet 
Street.    Henry  can  go  with  you." 

She  paused  for  a  moment,  and  then  said,  "How  long 
will  it  take  you  to  write  the  notice  of  the  play  ? ' '  she  asked, 
adding  before  he  could  answer,  "Can't  you  do  it  now?" 

"Yes,  Gilbert,"  Henry  said,  "you  can  do  it  now.  You 
know  the  play,  and  you've  seen  the  acting  in  two  acts.  .  .  ." 

Gilbert  looked  at  him  very  directly,  and  when  he  spoke, 
his  voice  was  very  firm.  "No,"  he  said,  "I  must  go  down 
to  Fleet  Street!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  257 

Lady  Cecily  was  cross  and  hurt,  and  she  turned  away 
pettishly. 

"Oh,  very  well!"  she  said  shortly. 

There  was  a  slight  air  of  restraint  among  them  .  .  .  even 
Lord  Jasper  seemed  to  feel  it.    It  was  he  who  spoke  next. 

"You  can  come  and  join  us  at  the  Savoy  after  you've 
done  your  .  .  .  whatyoumaycallit,  can't  you?"  he  said. 

Gilbert  paused  for  a  moment.  He  looked  as  if  he  were 
undecided  as  to  what  he  should  say.  Then  he  said,  "Yes, 
I  can  do  that  ...  if  I  get  away  from  the  office  in  time ! ' ' 

Henry  was  about  to  say,  "Why,  of  course,  you  can  get 
away  in  plenty  of  time ! ' '  but  he  checked  himself  and  did 
not  say  it. 

"Oh,  that  will  do  excellently,"  said  Lady  Cecily,  all 
smiles  again. 

Then  the  lights  of  the  theatre  were  lowered  and  the 
third  act  began. 


When  the  play  was  over,  they  drove  to  Fleet  Street  in 
Lord  Jasper's  motor-car.  Lady  Cecily  had  suggested  that 
they  should  take  Gilbert  to  his  newspaper  office  in  order 
to  save  time,  and  he  had  consented  readily  enough. 

"We  might  wait  for  you!  ..."  she  added,  but  Gilbert 
would  not  agree  to  this  proposal.  "It  isn't  fair  to  keep 
Jimphy  from  his  birthday  treat  any  longer, ' '  he  said,  * '  and 
I  may  be  some  time  before  I'm  ready!" 

She  was  sitting  next  to  Gilbert,  and  Henry  and  Jimphy 
were  together  with  their  backs  to  the  chauffeur.  She  did 
not  appear  to  be  tired  nor  had  the  sparkle  of  her  beautiful 
eyes  diminished.  She  lay  against  the  padded  back  of  the 
car  and  chattered  in  an  inconsequent  fashion  that  was  oddly 
amusing.  She  did  not  listen  to  replies  that  were  made  to 
her  questions,  nor  did  she  appear  to  notice  that  sometimes 
replies  were  not  made.  It  seemed  to  Henry  that  she  would 
have  chattered  exactly  as  she  was  now  chattering  if  she  had. 


258  CHANGING  WINDS 

been  alone.  Neither  Gilbert  nor  Jimphy  answered  her, 
but  Henry  felt  that  something  ought  to  be  said  when  she 
made  a  direct  remark. 

"Isn't  Fleet  Street  funny  at  this  time  of  night?"  she 
said.  "So  quiet.  I  do  hope  the  supper  will  be  fit  to  eat. 
Oh,  Gilbert,  I  wish  you'd  say  something  in  your  notice 
of  Wilde's  play  about  his  insincerity,  I  felt  all  the  time 
I  was  listening  to  the  play  that  .  .  .  that  it  wasn  't  true ! ' ' 

Gilbert  sat  up  straight  in  his  seat  and  looked  at  her. 

"  Oh ! "  he  exclaimed. 

"Yes,"  she  went  on.  "The  wit  seemed  to  be  stuck  on 
to  the  play  ...  it  wasn't  part  of  it!  .  .  ." 

Gilbert  leant  back  in  his  seat  again.  "You've  been 
talking  to  Henry  about  Wilde,  haven't  you?" 

She  laughed  lightly  and  turned  towards  Henry.  "Oh, 
of  course.  Mr.  Quinn,  I  always  repeat  what  other  people 
say.  I  forget  that  they  've  said  it  to  me  and  think  that  I  've 
thought  of  it  myself!" 

Henry  professed  to  be  pleased  that  she  had  accepted  his 
ideas  so  completely. 

"But,  of  course,"  she  continued,  "what  you  said  was 
quite  true.  I've  always  felt  that  there  was  something 
wrong  with  Wilde's  plays.  ..." 

"I  can't  think  what  you  all  want  to  talk  about  a  play 
for.  I  never  see  anything  in  'em  to  talk  about ! ' '  Jimphy 
murmured  sleepily. 

"Go  to  sleep,  Jimphy,  dear.  We'll  wake  you  when  we 
get  to  the  Savoy.  ..." 

"Always  ragging  a  chap!"  Jimphy  muttered,  and  then 
closed  his  eyes. 

The  car  turned  down  one  of  the  narrow  streets  that  lead 
from  Fleet  Street  to  the  Thames  Embankment,  and  then 
turned  again  and  stopped. 

"Oh,  is  this  your  office,  Gilbert?"  Lady  Cecily  said. 
"Such  an  ugly,  dark  looking  place!  But  I  suppose  it's 
interesting  inside?  Newspaper  offices  are  supposed  to  be 
awfully  interesting  inside,  aren't  they?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  259 

"Are  they?"  Gilbert  replied,  as  he  got  out  of  the  ear. 
"I've  never  noticed  it.  Noisy  holes  where  no  one  has  time 
to  think.     Good-bye." 

"Not  'good-bye,'  Gilbert!  "We  shall  see  you  soon  at  the 
Savoy,  shan't  we?" 

"Oh,  yes.    Yes.     I'd  almost  forgotten  that!" 

The  car  drove  off,  threading  the  narrow  steep  street 
slowly.  They  could  hear  the  deep  rurr-rurr  of  the  printing 
machines  coming  from  the  basements  of  the  buildings,  and 
now  and  then  great  patches  of  pallid  blue  light  shot  out  of 
open  windows.  Motor-vans  and  horse-waggons  were  drawn 
up  against  the  pavements  in  front  of  the  office-doors,  wait- 
ing for  the  newly-printed  papers.  Bundles  of  Daily  Re- 
flexions were  already  printed  and  were  being  thrown  on  to 
the  cars  and  waggons  for  distribution. 

"Are  they  printed  already?"  Lady  Cecily  said. 

"]\Iost  of  them  were  printed  at  nine  o'clock,"  Henry 
replied.  "The  ha'penny  illustrated  papers  go  all  over  the 
country  before  the  ordinary  papers  are  printed  at  all ! " 

' '  How  awfully  clever  of  them ! ' '  she  said. 

The  car  turned  into  Fleet  Street  and  quickly  drove  up  to 
the  Savoy. 

' '  Thank  God ! ' '  said  Jimphy.  * '  I  shall  get  some  fun  out 
of  my  birthday  now ! ' ' 

"Jimphy  loves  his  food,"  Lady  Cecily  exclaimed. 
"Don't  you,  Jimphy?  Don't  you  love  your  little  tum- 
tumt  .  .  ." 

They  entered  the  hotel  and  found  the  table  which  had 
been  reserved  for  them.  There  was  a  queer,  hectic  gaiety 
about  the  place,  as  if  every  one  present  were  making  a 
desperate  effort  to  eat,  drink  and  be  merry.  People  greeted 
Lady  Cecily  as  she  passed  them  and  muttered,  ' '  'loa, 
Jimphy!"  Henry  had  never  been  to  a  fashionable  res- 
taurant before,  and  the  barbaric  beauty  of  the  scene  fas- 
cinated him.  The  women  were  riotously  dressed,  and  the 
colours  of  their  garments  mingled  and  merged  like  the 
colours  of  a  sunset.    There  was  a  constant  flow  of  people 


260  CHANGING  WINDS 

through  the  room,  and  the  chatter  of  animated  voices  and 
bursts  of  laughter  and  the  jingling,  sentimental  music 
played  by  the  orchestra  made  Jimphy  forget  how  bored  he 
had  been  at  the  theatre.  The  slightly  fuddled  air  which 
he  had  had  in  the  bar  of  St.  James's  had  left  him  and  he 
began  to  talk. 

"Ripping  woman,  that!"  he  said  to  Henry,  indicating 
a  slight,  dark  girl  who  had  entered  the  restaurant  in  com- 
pany with  a  tall,  flaxen-haired  man.  "Pretty  little  flapper, 
I  call  her!  I  like  thin  women,  myself.  Well,  slender 's  a 
better  word,  isn't  it?    What  you  say,  Cecily?" 

Lady  Cecily  had  tapped  her  husband's  arm.  "Ernest 
Lensley's  just  come  in,"  she  said.  "He's  with  Boltt.  Go 
and  bring  them  both  here.  They  can't  find  seats,  poor 
dears ! ' ' 

Ernest  Lensley  and  Boltt  were  fashionable  novelists. 
Lensley  was  an  impudent-looking  man  with  very  blue  eyes 
who  had  written  a  number  of  popular  stories  about  society 
women  who  "chattered"  very  much  in  the  way  that  Lady 
Cecily  chattered.  The  heroine  of  his  best-known  book  was 
modelled,  so  people  said,  on  the  wife  of  a  Cabinet  Minister, 
and  thousands  of  suburban  Englishwomen  professed  to 
have  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  statesman's  family  life 
solely  because  they  had  read  Lensley's  novel.  It  was  a 
flippant,  vulgar  book,  the  outcome  of  a  flippant,  vulgar 
mind.  Boltt  had  a  wider  public  than  Lensley.  Boltt,  a 
tall,  thin,  stooping  man,  with  peering  eyes,  had  discovered 
"the  human  note"  of  which  Gilbert's  editor  prated  con- 
tinually. He  was  a  precise,  priggish  man,  extraordinarily 
vain  though  no  vainer  than  Lensley,  who,  however,  had  an 
easy  manner  that  Boltt  would  never  acquire.  He  spoke 
in  the  way  in  which  one  might  expect  a  "reduced  gentle- 
woman, poor  dear!"  to  speak,  and  there  was  something 
about  him  that  made  a  man  long  to  kick  him  up  a  room 
and  down  a  room  and  across  a  room  and  back  again.  Ilis 
heroes  were  all  big,  burly,  red-haired  giants,  who  wore 
beards  and  old  clothes  and  said  "By  God,  yes !"  when  they 


CHANGING  WINDS  ^61 

admired  the  scenery,  and  led  a  vagabond  life  in  a  per- 
fectly gentlemanly  manner  until  they  met  the  heroine.  .  .  . 
His  heroines  constantly  fell  into  situations  which  were  ex- 
tremely compromising  in  the  eyes  of  a  censorious  world, 
but  they  were  never  completely  compromised.  The  whole 
world  knew,  before  the  conclusion  of  the  story,  that  the 
heroine  had  been  falsely  suspected.  If  she  had  spent  the 
night  in  the  hero's  bedroom,  she  had  done  so  with  the  best 
intentions,  under  the  strictest  chaperonage  .  .  .  usually 
that  of  her  dear,  devoted  old  nurse,  God  bless  her!  .  .  . 
whose  presence  in  the  bedroom  had  been  hidden,  until  the 
middle  of  the  penultimate  chapter,  from  the  heroine's 
friends  and  relatives.  The  hero,  of  course,  poor,  manly, 
broken  giant,  had  been  ill,  suffering  from  a  fever,  and  in  his 
delirium  had  called  for  her,  discontent  until  she  had  put 
her  cool  firm  hand  upon  his  hot  brow,  and  the  doctor  had 
said  that  if  she  would  stay  with  him,  she  would  save  his 
life.  So  she  had  flung  her  reputation  to  the  winds  and 
had  hurried  to  his  bedroom.  ...  It  was  pretentious,  flatu- 
lent stuff,  through  which  a  thin  stream  of  tepid  lust 
trickled  so  gently  that  it  seemed  like  a  stream  of  pretty 
sentiment,  and  it  was  written  with  such  cleverness  that 
young  ladies  in  Bath  and  Cheltenham  and  Atlantic  City, 
U.  S.  A.,  were  tricked  into  believing  that  this  was  Life 
.  .  .  Real  Life.  .  .  . 

Lensley  and  Boltt  followed  Jimphy  eagerly  to  Lady 
Cecily's  table.  Lensley  was  glad  to  sit  with  her:  Boltt 
was  glad  to  be  certain  of  his  supper.  Lensley  enjoyed 
listening  to  Cecily's  babble  because  he  could  always  be 
certain  of  getting  something  out  of  her  speech  that  would 
just  fit  into  his  next  novel :  Boltt  liked  his  contiguity  to 
members  of  the  governing  class.  They  completely  ignored 
Henry  after  they  had  been  introduced  to  him. 

*  *  Mr.  Quinn  is  writing  a  novel,  too ! ' '  said  Lady  Cecily. 

**0h,  yes!"  said  Lensley. 

"Indeed!"  Boltt  burbled. 

Thereafter  they  addressed  themselves  exclusively  to  Lady 


26«  CHANGING  WINDS 

Cecily  and  her  husband.  Lensley  told  Lady  Cecily  that  she 
was  to  be  the  heroine  of  his  next  book.  * '  I  'm  studying  you 
now,  dear  Lady  Cecily!"  he  said.  "Jotting  you  down  in 
my  little  book  ...  all  your  little  plaguey  ways  and 
speeches!  ..." 

"How  awfully  exciting!"  she  replied,  and  her  eyes 
seemed  to  become  brighter,  and  she  leant  towards  the  novel- 
ist as  if  she  meant  to  reveal  herself  more  clearly  to  him. 

"You'll  be  angry  with  me  when  you  see  the  book,"  he 
said.  "Dreadfully  angry.  You  know  poor  Mrs.  Maldon 
was  very  hurt  about  'Jennifer'!"  Mrs.  Maldon  was  the 
wife  of  the  Cabinet  Minister. 

"I  shant't  mind  what  you  say  about  me,"  Lady  Cecily 
said,  "so  long  as  you  make  me  the  heroine  of  the  book. 
What  are  you  going  to  call  it?  .  .  ." 

* '  The  Delectable  Lady ! '  * 

"How  awfully  nice!  ..." 


Henry  began  to  feel  bored.  He  wished  that  Gilbert 
would  come.  Gilbert  would  soon  rout  this  paltry  little 
tuppenny-ha'penny  Society  novelist  with  his  pretty-pretty 
chatter  and  his  pretty-pretty  blue  eyes  and  his  air  of  being 
a  knowing  dog.  Lady  Cecily  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
Henry  altogether.  .  .  .  He  turned  to  Lord  Jasper  who  was 
trying  hard  not  to  yawn  in  ]\Ir.  Boltt's  face.  Air.  Boltt 
had  been  a  surveyor  at  one  period  of  his  life,  and  his 
favourite  theme  of  conversation  was  Renascence  archi- 
tecture. He  was  now  telling  Jimphy  of  the  glories  of 
French  Cathedrals,  and  Jimphy,  who  eared  even  less  for 
French  Cathedrals  than  he  cared  for  English  ones,  was 
wondering  just  how  he  could  change  the  conversation  to  a 
discussion  of  the  latest  ballet  at  the  Empire  and  partic- 
ularly of  a  girl  he  knew  who  was  a  perfect  lady  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  lived  with  her  mother.     The  supper  party 


CHANGING  WINDS  263 

seemed  likely  to  end  dismally,  and  Henry,  when  he  was 
not  wishing  that  Gilbert  would  come,  was  wishing  that  he 
himself  had  not  come.  He  could  not  understand  why  it 
was  that  he  had  so  much  difficulty  in  talking  easily  with 
strangers.  Lensley  was  prattling  as  if  he  were  determined 
to  discharge  an  entire  novelful  of  "chatter"  at  Lady  Cecily, 
and  Boltt's  little  clipped,  pedantic  voice  recited  a  long 
rigmarole  about  a  glorious  view  in  France  which  he  had 
lately  seen  while  motoring  in  that  country.  Boltt  admired 
Nature  in  the  way  in  which  any  man  of  careful  upbring- 
ing would  admire  a  really  nice  woman.  .  .  . 

Henry  had  lately  reviewed  a  book  by  Boltt  for  a  daily 
paper,  and  he  had  expressed  scorn  for  it  and  its  stuffed 
dummies,  masquerading  as  men  and  women  .  .  .  and  Boltt, 
who  took  himself  very  seriously  indeed,  had  written  a  let- 
ter of  complaint  to  the  editor  of  the  paper.  Henry  won- 
dered what  Boltt  would  say  if  he  knew  that  the  review  had 
been  written  by  him,  and  an  imp  in  him  made  him  inter- 
rupt the  long  recital  of  the  glories  of  France. 

* '  The  Morning  Report  had  a  good  go  at  your  last  novel, 
Boltt!"  he  said. 

The  novelist  looked  reproachfully  at  Henry,  as  if  he 
were  rebuking  him  for  indelicacy. 

"I  never  see  the  Morning  Report,"  he  replied  loftily. 

"Oh,  then,  I  suppose  you  didn't  see  the  review.  I 
thought  you  probably  got  clippings  from  a  Press-cuttings 
agency!  ..." 

*  *  Yes,  oh,  yes,  I  do.  I  seem  to  remember  that  the  Morn- 
ing Report  was  unkind.    Not  quite  fair,  I  should  say ! ' ' 

Lord  Jasper  began  to  take  an  intelligent  interest  in  the 
conversation.  * '  Have  you  published  another  book,  Boltt  ? ' ' 
he  asked  innocently. 

"Yes  .  .  .  a  .  .  .  Lord  Jasper  ...  I  have!"  Mr.  Boltt 
said,  and  there  was  some  sniffiness  in  his  tones.  He  was 
accustomed  to  lengthy  reviews  on  the  day  of  publication, 
and  it  annoyed  him  to  think  that  there  was  some  one  in 


264»  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  world,  some  one,  too,  with  whom  he  was  acquainted, 
who  did  not  know  that  the  publication  of  one  of  his  books 
was  an  event. 

"I  can't  think  how  you  writing  chaps  keep  it  up,"  said 
Jimphy.    "I  couldn't  write  a  book  to  save  my  life!  ..." 

"No?"  said  Mr.  Boltt,  smiling  in  the  way  of  one  who 
says  to  himself,  "God  help  you,  my  poor  fellow,  God  help 
you!" 

"I  suppose  it's  all  a  question  of  knack,"  Jimphy  con- 
tinued. "You  get  into  the  way  of  it  and  you  can't  stop. 
Sometimes  a  tune  gets  into  my  head  and  I  have  to  keep  on 
humming  it  or  whistling  it.  I'm  not  what  you'd  call  a 
sentimental  fellow  at  all,  but  that  song  .  .  .  you  know, 
about  the  honeysuckle  and  the  bee  ...  I  could  not  get 
that  song  out  of  my  head.  I  thought  I  should  go  cracked 
over  it.  Always  humming  it  or  whistling  it  .  .  .  and  I 
suppose  if  you  get  an  idea  for  a  yarn  into  your  head, 
Boltt,  well,  it's  something  like  that!" 

Lady  Cecily  had  exhausted  the  "chatter"  of  Mr. 
Lensley. 

"What's  that?"  she  exclaimed. 

"Lord  Jasper  is  describing  the  processes  of  literature  to 
me.  Lady  Cecily,"  said  Mr.  Boltt  sarcastically.  "I  have 
been  greatly  interested. 

The  man's  conceit  irritated  Henry  and  he  longed  to  dis- 
concert him. 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "It  all  began  by  my  saying  something 
about  a  review  of  Boltt 's  last  novel  in  the  Morning  Re- 
port! .  .  ." 

Mr.  Boltt  made  motions  with  his  hands.  "Really,"  he 
said,  "Lady  Cecily  isn't  in  the  least  interested  in  my 
effusions. ' ' 

"Oh,  but  I  am,  Mr.  Boltt,"  Lady  Cecily  interrupted. 
"What  did  the  paper  say?  I'm  sure  it  was  very  flatter- 
ing! .  .  ." 

"The  reviewer  said  that  the  book  would  probably  please 


CHANGING  WINDS  265 

the  vicar's  only  daughter,  but  that  it  wouldn't  impose  upon 
her  when  she  grew  up.  ..." 

'*0h!"  said  Lady  Cecily. 

* '  Some  rival,  I  'm  afraid ! ' '  Mr.  Boltt  murmured.  '  *  Some 
one  who  dislikes  me.  ..." 

"The  chief  complaint  was  that  your  people  aren't 
real.  ..."  Henry  continued,  though  Mr.  Boltt  frowned 
heavily. 

"Yes.  I  don't  think  we  need  discuss  the  matter  further, 
Mr.  .  .  ." 

' '  Quinn ! ! "  said'  Henry. 

He  felt  happier  now  that  he  had  pricked  the  egregious 
fellow's  vanity. 

"Silly  of  'em  to  say  that,"  said  Lord  Jasper.  "Boltt 
sells  a  tremendous  number  of  books,  don't  you,  Boltt? 
More  than  Lensley  does.  And  that  shows,  doesn't  it?  If 
a  chap  can  sell  as  many  books  as  Boltt  sells  .  .  .  well,  he 
must  be  some  good.  I  've  never  read  any  of  'em,  of  course, 
but  then  I'm  not  a  chap  that  reads  much.  All  the  same,  a 
chap  I  know  says  Boltt 's  all  right,  and  he's  a  chap  that 
knows  what  he's  talking  about.  I  mean  to  say,  he's  writ- 
ten books  himself!" 

Lady  Cecily  was  no  longer  interested  in  the  history  of 
Mr.  Boltt 's  novel.  The  meal  was  almost  at  an  end,  and 
Gilbert  had  not  arrived.  She  glanced  towards  the  door, 
looking  straight  over  Mr.  Lensley 's  head,  and  Henry  could 
see  that  she  was  fidgeting. 

"Gilbert's  a  long  time,"  he  said  to  her. 

She  did  not  answer,  and  before  he  could  repeat  his 
remark  to  her.  Lord  Jasper  exclaimed,  "I  say,  you  know, 
we  ought  to  be  getting  home,  Cecily.  It's  getting  jolly 
late!  .  .  ." 

"Let's  wait  a  little  longer,"  she  said,  "Gilbert  hasn't 
come  yet!" 

"But  I  mean  to  say,  this  place '11  be  closing  soon.  ..." 

Mr.  Boltt  made  a  satirical  remark  on  the  ridiculously 


266  CHANGING  WINDS 

early  hours  at  which  restaurants  are  compelled  by  law  to 
close  in  England.  In  France,  he  said  .  .  .  but  Lord  Jas- 
per did  not  wait  to  hear  what  is  done  in  France. 

"He  won't  come  now,"  he  said.  "He  wouldn't  have 
time  to  eat  any  supper  if  he  were  to  come  .  .  .  and  it's 
getting  jolly  late,  and  I'm  jolly  tired !" 

He  got  up  from  the  table  as  he  spoke.  "Very  well," 
said  Lady  Cecily,  rising  too. 

The  others  followed  her  example,  and  Boltt  and  Lensley 
prepared  to  escort  Lady  Cecily  to  the  door,  but  she  gave 
her  hand  to  them  and  said  "Good-night!" 

"It's  so  nice  to  have  seen  you  both,"  she  said.  "No, 
don't  trouble.    Mr.  Quinn  will  come  with  me!" 

Lord  Jasper  had  gone  on  in  front  to  find  his  car,  and 
Lady  Cecily  and  Henry  walked  down  the  room  together 
until  they  came  to  the  courtyard  where  the  car  was  wait- 
ing for  them. 

"Tell  Gilbert  I'm  angry  with  him,"  she  said.  "He 
must  come  and  see  me  soon  and  tell  me  how  sorry  he  is. 
You'll  come,  too,  perhaps,  Mr.  Quinn!" 

He  found  his  tongue  suddenly.  "I  will.  Lady  Cecily," 
he  said.  "I'll  come  even  if  he  doesn't.  I've  enjoyed  to- 
night tremendously.  ..." 

"Have  you,  Mr.  Quinn?" 

"Yes.  .  .  ." 

"I  say,  come  along,"  Lord  Jasper  shouted  to  them. 

"Poor  Jimphy's  getting  fractious.  You  can  tell  me  how 
much  you've  enjoyed  to-night  when  we  meet  again!" 

He  took  her  to  the  car,  and  watched  her  as  she  gathered 
her  skirts  about  her  and  climbed  inside. 

"Can't  we  drop  you  at  your  house?"  said  Lord  Jasper. 
"It  won't  be  any  trouble  to  do  so!" 

"No,  thanks,"  Henry  replied.  "I'd  rather  walk  home. 
It's  such  a  beautiful  night!" 

Lord  Jasper  followed  Lady  Cecily  into  the  car.  "You're 
a  romantic  chap,  Quinn!"  he  said,  and  then,  as  an  after- 
thought, he  added  quickly,  "I  say,  we  must  arrange  to  go 


CHANGING  WINDS  267 

to  the  Empire  together  some  evening.    You're  the  sort  of 
chap  I  like.  ..." 

Lady  Cecily  waved  her  hand  to  him.  As  the  car  moved 
off  he  saw  her  beautiful  face  leaning  against  the  side  of 
the  ear,  and  he  longed  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and  kiss 
her.  Then  the  car  turned,  and  drove  quickly  off.  He 
stood  for  a  moment  or  two  looking  after  it,  and  continued 
to  stand  still  even  when  it  had  swung  out  of  the  court- 
yard into  the  Strand.  Then  he  walked  slowly  away  from 
the  restaurant.  He  had  not  gone  very  far  when  his  arm 
was  touched,  and,  turning  round,  he  saw  Gilbert. 


"Hilloa,"  he  said,  "you're  late!" 

"No,  I'm  not,"  Gilbert  replied. 

* '  Yes,  you  are.     The  Jaynes  have  gone ! ' ' 

"I  saw  them  going.  I've  been  here  for  over  half-an- 
hour,  waiting  for  you!" 

' '  Over  half -an-hour !    What 's  up,  Gilbert  ? ' ' 

Gilbert  put  his  arm  in  Henry's  and  made  him  move  out 
of  the  Savoy  courtyard.  "Come  down  to  the  Embank- 
ment," he  said.     "It's  quieter  there.     I  want  to  talk  to 


you 


I" 


"But  hadn't  we  better  go  home?  We  can  talk  on  the 
way.    It's  late.  ..." 

"No.  I  want  to  go  to  the  Embankment.  Damn  it  all, 
Quinny,  it's  a  sentimental  place  for  a  heart-to-heart  talk, 
isn't  it?" 

"You  aren't  drunk,  Gilbert,  I  suppose?" 

"Never  so  sober  in  my  life,  Quinny.  Besides,  I  don't 
get  drunk.  People  who  talk  about  beer  and  whisky  as 
much  as  I  do,  never  get  drunk.  Come  along,  there 's  a  good 
chap!" 

"Very  well  .  .  .  only  I'm  not  going  to  stay  long.  I'm 
no  good  for  work  the  day  after  I've  had  a  long  night.  ..." 


268  CHANGING  WINDS 

"I  won't  keep  you  long.  How  did  the  supper-party  go 
off?" 

"Damnably.  Two  tame  novelists  turned  up  .  .  .  Boltt 
and  Lensley!" 

"Those  asses!" 

"Yes.  Lensley  'chattered'  to  Lady  Cecily,  and  Boltt 
bored  and  bored  and  bored.  ...  I  took  him  down  a  bit.  I 
rubbed  in  the  Morning  Report  review.  The  little  toad 
could  hardly  sit  still !  Of  course,  he  affected  the  superior 
person  attitude!" 

"God  be  merciful  to  him,  poor  little  rat!  He  wants 
to  be  a  wicked,  hell-for-leather  fellow,  but  he  hasn't  got 
the  stomach  for  it!  What  did  Cecily  say  when  I  didn't 
turn  up?" 

'  *  She  looked  rather  cross.  She  told  me  as  we  came  away 
to  tell  you  she  was  angry  with  you.  You're  to  go  and  apol- 
ogise to  her  as  soon  as  possible!" 

"Did  she?" 

"Yes.     I  say,  Gilbert,  why  didn't  you  turn  up?" 

They  had  reached  the  Embankment,  and  they  crossed  to 
the  riverside  and  leant  against  the  parapet. 

"Because  I  was  afraid  to,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Afraid  to!" 

"Yes.    Can't  you  see  I'm  in  love  with  her?" 

"Well,  I  guessed  as  much.  ..." 

*  *  I  love  her  so  much  that  she  can  do  what  she  likes  with 
me,  and  all  she  likes  to  do  is  to  destroy  me!" 

"Destroy  you?" 

"Yes.  If  you  love  Cecily,  she  demands  the  whole  of 
your  life.  Every  bit  of  it.  She  consumes  you.  .  .  .  Oh, 
I  know  this  sounds  like  a  penny  dreadful,  Quinny,  but  it's 
true.  I've  asked  her  to  run  away  with  me,  but  she  won't 
come.  She  says  she  hates  scandal  and  she  likes  her  social 
position.  My  God,  I  feel  sick  when  I  see  Jimphy  with 
her  .  .  .  like  a  damned  big  lobster  putting  his  .  .  .  his 
claws  about  her.  He  isn't  a  bad  fellow  in  his  silly  way, 
but  I  can't  stand  him  as  Cecily's  husband!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  269 

"I  know  what  you  mean,"  said  Henry. 

"I  thought  that  if  Cecily  and  I  were  to  go  away  to- 
gether, we  could  get  our  lives  into  some  sort  of  perspective, 
and  then  I  could  go  on  with  my  work  and  have  her  as 
well,  but  she  won't  go  away  with  me.  She  wants  me  to 
hang  around,  being  her  lover  .  .  .  and  I  can't  do  that, 
Quinny.  It's  mean  and  furtive,  and  I  hate  that.  You're 
always  listening  for  some  one  coming  ...  a  servant  or  the 
husband  or  some  one  .  .  .  and  I  can't  stand  that.  If  I 
love  a  woman,  I  love  her,  and  I  don't  want  to  spend 
part  of  my  life  in  pretending  that  I  don't.  I  loathe 
myself  when  I  have  to  change  the  talk  suddenly  or  move 
away  when  a  door  opens.  ...  Do  you  understand, 
Quinny?" 

Henry  nodded  his  head,  but  did  not  speak. 

"Once  when  I'd  been  begging  Cecily  to  go  away  with 
me,  Jimphy  walked  into  the  room  .  .  .  and  I  had  to  pre- 
tend to  be  talking  about  some  nasturtiums  that  Cecily  had 
grown.  I  felt  like  a  cad.  That's  what's  rotten  about  lov- 
ing another  man's  wife.  It's  the  treachery  of  the  thing, 
the  pretending.  ...  I've  often  wondered  why  it  is  that 
love  of  that  sort  seems  so  romantic  and  splendid  in  books 
and  so  damnably  mean  when  it  comes  into  the  Divorce 
Court  .  .  .  but  when  I  met  Cecily  I  knew  why  ...  it's 
because  of  the  treachery  and  the  deceit.  I  used  to  think 
that  it  was  beautiful  in  books  because  artists  were  able  to 
see  the  hidden  beauty,  and  ugly  in  the  Divorce  Court 
because  ordinary  people  only  saw  the  surface  things  .  .  . 
but  I'm  not  sure  now." 

He  stopped  speaking,  but  Henry  did  not  speak  instead. 
He  did  not  know  what  to  say ;  he  felt  indeed  that  there  was 
nothing  to  be  said,  that  he  must  simply  listen.  He  watched 
the  electric  signs  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  as  they 
spelt  out  the  virtues  of  Someone's  Teas  and  Another's 
Whisky,  and  wondered  how  long  it  would  be  before  Gilbert 
said  something  else.  He  was  beginning  to  be  bored  by  the 
business,  and  he  felt  sleepy.    He  was  jealous  too,  when 


270  CHANGING  WINDS 

he  thought  that  Gilbert  had  kissed  Cecily  and  had  been 
held  in  her  beautiful  arms.  .  .  . 

** Cecily  doesn't  mind  about  the  shabbiness  of  it,"  he 
heard  Gilbert  saying.  "We've  talked  about  that,  and  she 
says  it  doesn't  matter  a  bit.  All  that  matters  to  her  is 
that  she  shan't  be  found  out  .  .  .  too  publicly  anyhow! 
She  called  me  a  prig  when  I  said  that  I  was  afraid  of 
tainting  my  work.  ..." 

"Tainting  your  work?" 

"Yes.  Perhaps  it  is  priggish  of  me,  but  I  feel  that 
if  I  'm  mean  in  one  thing  I  may  be  mean  in  another.  I  'm 
terribly  afraid  of  doing  bad  work,  Quinny,  and  I  got  an 
idea  into  my  head  that  if  I  let  taint  into  my  life  in  one 
place,  I  couldn't  confine  it  and  it  would  spread  to  other 
places.  Do  you  see?  If  I  let  myself  get  into  a  rotten 
position  with  Cecily,  I  might  write  down.  ..." 

"I  don't  see  that,"  said  Henry.  "Because  you  love  a 
married  woman,  it  doesn't  follow  that  you'll  pot-boil." 

"No,  perhaps  not.  But  I  was  afraid  of  it.  I  suppose 
it  was  priggish  of  me.  That  wasn't  the  only  thing,  how- 
ever. I  knew  that  if  I  did  what  Cecily  wanted  me  to  do, 
I  *d  spend  most  of  my  time  with  her  or  thinking  about  her. 
I  can't  work  if  I'm  doing  that,  for  I  think  of  her  and 
long  for  her.  .  .  .  Oh,  let's  go  home.  It  isn't  fair  to  keep 
you  here  listening  to  my  twaddle!" 

But  they  did  not  move.  They  gazed  down  on  the  swiftly- 
flowing  river,  and  presently  they  heard  Big  Ben  striking 
one  deep  note. 

"One  o'clock!"  said  Gilbert. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it,  Gilbert?"  Henry 
asked  at  last. 

"I'm  going  away  from  London.  I've  chucked  my  job 
on  the  Daily  Echo.  ..." 

"Good  Lord,  man,  what  for?" 

"Well,  I'm  fed-up  with  the  English  theatre  to  begin 
with,  and  I'm  fed-up  with  journalism  too  .  .  .  and  it's 
the  only  way  I  can  get  free  of  Cecily.    I  must  finish  the 


CHANGING  WINDS  m 

new  comedy  and  I  can't  finish  it  if  I  stay  in  town  and 
see  Cecily.  She  won't  let  me  finish  it.  She'll  make  me 
go  here  and  go  there  with  her.  She'll  keep  me  making 
love  to  her  when  I  ought  to  be  working.  God  damn  women, 
Quinny ! ' ' 

''You're  excited,  Gilbert!" 

"Yes,  I  know  I  am.  When  I'm  with  Cecily,  I'm  like  a 
jelly-fish.  She  sucks  the  brains  out  of  me.  She  doesn't 
care  whether  I  finish  my  comedy  or  not.  She  doesn't  care 
what  happens  to  my  work  so  long  as  I  hang  around  and 
love  her  and  kiss  her  whenever  she  wants  me  to.  My  brains 
go  to  bits  when  I'm  with  her.  I'm  all  emotion  and  sensa- 
tion .  .  .  just  like  those  asses  Lensley  and  Boltt.  Quinny, 
fancy  spending  your  life  turning  out  the  sort  of  stuff  those 
two  men  write.  They  've  written  about  a  dozen  books  each, 
and  I  suppose  they  're  good  for  twenty  or  thirty  more.  I  'd 
rather  be  a  scavenger ! ' ' 

They  walked  along  the  Embankment  towards  Waterloo 
Bridge. 

"I'm  going  to  Anglesey,"  Gilbert  said.  "I  shall  go  and 
stay  there  until  the  end  of  the  summer ! ' ' 

"I  shall  miss  you,  Gilbert.     So  will  Ninian  and  Roger!" 

"I  shall  miss  you  three,  but  it  can't  be  helped.  I'm 
the  sort  of  man  who  succumbs  to  women  ...  I  can't  help 
it.  If  they're  beautiful  and  soft  and  full  of  love  .  .  .  like 
Cecily  .  .  .  they  down  me.  Their  femininity  topples  me 
over,  and  there's  no  work  to  be  got  out  of  me  while  I'm 
like  that.  But  my  work's  of  more  consequence  to  me  than 
loving  and  kissing,  Quinny,  and  if  I  can't  do  it  while  I'm 
Cecily's  lover,  then  I'll  go  away  from  her  and  do  it!" 

"What  makes  you  think  you  could  do  it  if  she  were  to 
go  away  with  you?" 

"I  don't  know.    Hope,  I  suppose." 

They  walked  up  Villiers  Street  into  the  Strand,  and 
made  their  way  towards  Bloomsbury. 

"I  suppose,"  said  Gilbert,  "you  wouldn't  like  to  come 
to  Anglesey  too?" 


272  CHANGING  WINDS 

Henry  hesitated  for  a  few  moments.  He  had  a  vision 
of  Lady  Cecily's  beautiful  face  leaning  against  the  padded 
side  of  the  car,  and  he  remembered  that  she  had  smiled 
and  waved  her  hand  to  h'im.  .  .  . 

*'No,"  he  replied,  "I  don't  think  so  .  .  .  not  at  present 
at  any  rate!"  and  then,  added  in  explanation,  **If  I  go, 
too,  the  house  will  be  broken  up.    That  would  be  a  pity !  * ' 

"I  forgot  that,"  Gilbert  answered.    "Yes,  of  course!" 


THE  SIXTH  CHAPTER 

1 

Gilbert  did  not  leave  London,  as  he  had  intended,  for  Sir 
Geoffrey  Mundane  definitely  decided  to  produce  "The 
Magic  Casement"  in  succession  to  the  play  which  was  then 
being  performed  at  his  theatre.  He  had  already  discussed 
the  caste  with  Gilbert,  and  on  the  morning  after  the  scene 
on  the  Embankment,  he  telephoned  to  Gilbert,  telling  him 
that  he  had  made  engagements  for  the  play,  and  would  like 
to  fix  a  date  on  which  he  should  read  the  manuscript  to 
the  company.  "Any  day '11  suit  me,"  Gilbert  had  in- 
formed him,  and  Sir  Geoffrey  thereupon  settled  that  the 
reading  should  take  place  two  days  later.  "I  suppose," 
he  said,  "you'd  like  to  attend  the  rehearsals?"  and  Gil- 
bert, forgetting  his  resolution  to  fly  from  Lady  Cecily, 
said  that  he  would.  He  thought  that  the  experience  would 
be  very  valuable  to  him.  He  became  so  excited  at  the  pros- 
pect of  seeing  a  play  of  his  performed  at  a  West  End 
theatre  that  he  was  unable  to  sit  still,  and  his  language, 
always  extravagant,  became  absurd.  He  broke  every  rule 
that  Roger  had  invented.  "It'll  take  all  the  royalties 
you  '11  receive  to  pay  off  this  score ! ' '  Roger  said,  thrusting 
the  fine-book  before  him. 

"Poo!"  said  Gilbert.  "I'll  buy  up  the  Ten  Command- 
ments with  one  night's  royalty!  Oh,  it's  going  to  be  a 
success,  I  tell  you.  It'll  run  for  a  year  .  .  .  more  than 
that  .  .  .  two  years!  ..."  He  began  to  estimate  the  num- 
ber of  performances  the  play  would  receive.  * '  Six  evening 
performances  and  two  matinees  every  week  for  fifty-two 
weeks !  Eight  times  fifty-two,  Roger  .  .  .  you  were  a  Sec- 
ond Wrangler,  you  ought  to  know  that!     Four  hundred 

273 


274.  CHANGING  WINDS 

and  sixteen!  Lordy  God,  what  a  lot!  And  if  I  get  ten 
pounds  every  time  it's  done  .  .  .  Oh-h-h!  Four  thousand, 
one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds!  And  then  there'll  be 
American  rights  and  provincial  rights.  ...  I'll  tell  you 
what  I'll  do,  coves!  I'll  buy  you  all  a  stick  of  barley- 
sugar  each,  or  a  penn'orth  of  acid-drops  .  .  .  which  'ud 
you  like?  ..." 

It  was  during  the  rehearsals  of  "The  Magic  Casement" 
that  "Broken  Spears"  was  published. 

"It  isn't  as  good  as  'Drusilla,'  "  they  said  to  Henry, 
when  they  had  read  it,  '  *  but  it  '11  be  more  popular ! ' ' 

It  was.  The  critics  who  had  praised  "Drusilla"  were 
not  impressed  by  "Broken  Spears,"  but  the  critics  who 
had  been  indifferent  to  "Drusilla"  praised  "Broken 
Spears"  so  extravagantly  that  six  thousand  copies  of  it 
were  sold  in  six  months,  apart  from  the  copies  which  were 
sold  to  the  lending  libraries,  and  the  sale  of  "Drusilla," 
in  consequence  of  the  success  of  ' '  Broken  Spears, ' '  increased 
from  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  copies  to  one  thousand 
-Ive  hundred  and  eighty.  Mr.  Quinn,  in  thanking  Henry 
;:or  a  copy  of  it,  merely  said,  in  direct  reference  to  the 
book,  "/  see  you've  been  tickling  the  English.  Don't  go 
on  doing  it!''  and  the  effect  of  this  criticism  was  so  stimu- 
lating that  Henry  destroyed  the  three  chapters  of  "Tur- 
bulence" which  were  in  manuscript  and  started  to  rewrite 
the  book.  Literary  agents  now  began  to  write  to  him, 
telling  him  how  charmed  they  were  with  his  work  and 
how  certain  they  were  of  their  ability  to  increase  his 
income  considerably;  and  a  publisher  of  some  enterprise 
and  resource  wrote  to  him  and  said  that  he  would  like  to 
360  his  third  book. 

"You  look  as  if  you  were  established,  Quinny!"  said 
Roger,  and  Henry  blushed  and  murmured  deprecatingly 
about  himself. 

"How's  the  Bar?"  he  said. 

"Oh,  it's  not  bad.  I  got  a  fellow  off  to-day  who  ought 
to  have  had  six  months  hard,"  Roger  answered.    "And 


CHANGING  WINDS  876 

a  new  solicitor  has  given  me  a  brief.  We  ought  to  ask 
him  to  dinner  and  feed  him  well.  F.  E.  Robinson  always 
tells  his  butler  to  bring  out  the  second-quality  wine  for 
solicitors.     Snob!" 

"We  seem  to  be  getting  on,  don't  we,  coves?"  Gilbert 
interjected.     "Look  at  all  these  press-cuttings!  ..." 

He  held  out  a  fistful  of  slips  which  had  come  that  even- 
ing from  a  Press-Cutting  Agency.  "All  about  me,"  he 
said,  "and  the  play.  Mundane  knows  more  about  the  pre- 
liminary puff  than  any  one  else  in  England.  He  calls  me 
'this  talented  young  author  from  whom  much  may  be  ex- 
pected.' I  never  thought  I  should  get  pleasure  out  of  a 
trade  advertisement,  but  I  do.  I'm  lapping  up  this  stuff 
like  billy-o.  I  saw  a  poster  on  the  side  of  a  'bus  this 
afternoon,  advertising  'The  Magic  Casement.'  Mun- 
dane's  name  was  in  big  letters,  and  you  could  just  see  mine 
with  the  naked  eye.  I  hopped  on  to  the  'bus  and  went 
for  a  fourpenny  ride  on  it,  so's  I  could  touch  the  damn 
thing  .  .  .  and  I  very  nearly  told  the  conductor  who  I 
was.  It's  no  good  pretending  I'm  not  conceited.  I  am, 
and  I  don't  care.    Where's  Ninian?" 

"Not  come  in  yet.  How'd  the  rehearsals  go  to-day?" 
Roger  answered. 

"Better  than  any  other  day.  They're  beginning  to  feel 
their  parts.  It's  about  time,  too.  I  felt  sick  with  fright 
yesterday,  they  were  so  wooden.  Mundane  might  have 
been  the  village  idiot,  instead  of  the  fine  actor  he  is  .  .  . 
but  they  're  better  now.     Ninian 's  late !  * ' 

"Is  he?  He'll  be  here  presently.  By  the  way,  my 
Cousin  Rachel's  coming  to  town  to-morrow.  She's  been 
investigating  something  or  other  .  .  .  factory  life,  I  think. 
I  thought  I  'd  bring  her  here  to  dinner.  She  may  be  inter- 
esting. ' ' 

"Do,"  said  Gilbert,  and  then,  as  he  heard  the  noise  of 
the  street-door  being  closed,  he  added,  "There's  Ninian 
now!" 

Ninian,  on  his  way  to  his  room,  stopped  for  a  moment 


276  CHANGING  WINDS 

or  two,  to  shout  at  them,  "I  say,  the  mater  and  Mary've 
come  up  from  Devon.  I  got  a  wire  this  afternoon.  I'm 
not  grubbing  with  you  to-night.  They  want  to  go  to  a 
theatre,  and  I've  got  to  climb  into  gaudy  garments  and  go 
with  them.  ..." 

He  closed  the  door  and  ran  up  the  stairs,  but  before 
he  reached  the  first  landing,  Gilbert  called  after  him,  "I 
say,  Ninian!" 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  pausing  on  the  stairs. 

** Bring  them  to  dinner  to-morrow  night.  Roger's  Cousin 
Rachel  is  coming,  and  we  may  as  well  make  a  party  of  it. 
Gaudy  garments  and  liqueurs.  Do  you  think  they'll  stay 
for  the  first  night  of  my  play?" 

"That's  one  of  the  reasons  why  they've  come  up," 
Ninian  answered. 


Rachel  "Wynne  and  Mrs.  Graham  and  Mary  dined  with 
them  on  the  following  evening,  and  it  seemed  to  Henry 
when  he  saw  Mary  entering  Ninian 's  sitting-room  that  she 
was  a  stranger  to  him.  He  had  known  her  as  a  child  and 
as  a  young,  self-conscious  girl,  but  this  Mary  was  a  woman. 
He  felt  shy  in  her  presence,  and  when,  for  a  few  moments, 
he  was  left  alone  with  her,  he  hardly  knew  what  to  say  to 
her.  They  had  been  "Quinny"  and  "Mary"  to  each  other 
before,  but  now  they  avoided  names.  .  .  .  He  spoke  tritely 
about  her  journey  to  London,  reminding  her  of  the  slow- 
ness of  the  train  between  Whitcombe  and  Salisbury,  and 
wondered  whether  she  liked  London  better  than  Bovey- 
hayne.  His  old  disability  to  say  the  things  that  were  in  his 
mind  prevented  him  from  re-establishing  his  intimacy 
with  her.  He  tried  to  say,  * '  Hilloa,  Mary ! ' '  but  could  not 
do  so,  and  his  shyness  affected  her  so  that  she  stood  before 
him,  fingering  her  fan  nervously,  and  answering  "Yes" 
and  "Oh,  yes!"  and  "No"  and  "Oh,  no!"  to  all  that  he 
said.    He  liked  the  sweep  of  her  hair  across  her  brow  and 


CHANGING  WINDS  im 

the  soft  flush  in  her  cheeks  and  the  slender  lines  of  her  neck 
and  the  gleam  of  a  gold  chain  that  held  a  pendant  sus- 
pended about  her  throat.  He  thought,  too,  that  her  eyes 
shone  like  lustres  in  the  light,  and  suddenly,  as  he  thought 
this,  he  felt  that  he  could  speak  to  her  with  his  old  free- 
dom. He  moved  towards  her,  shaping  his  lips  to  say,  * '  Oh, 
Mary,  I  .  .  ."  but  the  door  opened  before  he  could  speak, 
and  Rachel  Wynne  entered  the  room  with  Roger  and  Mrs. 
Graham. 

*'Yes,  Quinny?"  Mary  said,  saying  his  name  quite  easily 
now. 

He  laughed  nervously  and  looked  at  the  others.  "I've 
forgotten  what  I  was  going  to  say,"  he  said,  and  went 
forward  to  greet  Mrs.  Graham. 

"My  cousin,  Rachel  Wynne,"  said  Roger,  introducing 
her  to  him. 

Rachel  Wynne  was  a  tall,  thin  girl,  with  a  curious 
tightened  look,  as  if  she  were  keeping  a  close  hold  on  her- 
self. When  she  held  out  her  hand  to  him,  he  had  a  sensa- 
tion of  discomfort,  not  because  her  clasp  was  firm,  but 
because  she  seemed  to  be  looking,  not  through  him,  but  into 
him.  He  was  very  sensitive  to  the  opinion  of  people 
about  him,  feeling  very  quickly  the  dislike  of  any  one  who 
did  not  care  for  him,  and  in  a  moment  he  knew  that  Rachel 
Wynne  was  antipathetic  to  him.  Henry  was  always  rude 
to  people  whom  he  disliked  ...  he  could  not  be  civil  to 
them,  however  hard  he  might  try  to  be  so,  but  his  feeling  in 
the  presence  of  people  who  disliked  him,  was  one  of  power- 
lessness:  he  was  tongue-tied  and  nervous  and  very  dull, 
and  his  faculties  seemed  to  shrivel  up.  There  was  a  look  of 
cold  efficiency  about  Rachel  Wynne  that  frightened  him. 
She  seemed  to  be  incapable  of  wasting  time  or  of  wayward- 
ness. Her  career  at  Newnham,  Roger  had  told  him,  had 
been  one  of  steady  brilliance.  "There  wasn't  a  flicker  in 
it,"  he  had  said  to  Henry.  "Rachel's  always  well- 
trimmed  ! ' ' 

There  were  no  ragged  edges  about  Rachel  Wynne.     Her 


278  CHANGING  WINDS 

frock  was  neatly  made,  so  neatly  that  he  was  unaware  of 
it,  and  her  hair  was  bound  tightly  to  her  head  by  a  black 
velvet  ribbon.  She  had  a  look  of  cold  tidiness,  as  if  she 
had  been  frozen  into  her  shape  and  could  not  be  thawed 
out  of  it;  but  she  was  not  cold  in  spirit,  as  he  discovered 
during  dinner  when  the  conversation  shifted  from  general- 
ities about  themselves  to  the  work  she  had  lately  been 
doing.  They  had  been  talking  about  Gilbert's  play,  and 
then  Mrs.  Graham  had  turned  to  Henry  and  told  him  how 
much  she  liked  his  novels.  Her  tastes  were  simple,  and 
she  preferred  "Broken  Spears"  to  "Drusilla."  "Of 
course,  'Drusilla'  is  very  clever!"  she  said  a  little  depre- 
catingly,  and  then  she  turned  to  Rachel  and  asked  her 
whether  she  had  read  Henry's  novels. 

"No,"  Rachel  answered.  "I  very  seldom  read  nov- 
els! .  .  ." 

He  felt  contempt  for  her.  Now  he  knew  why  he  had 
been  chilled  by  her  presence.  She  belonged  to  that  order 
of  prigs  which  will  not  read  novels,  preferring  instead  to 
read  "serious"  books.  Such  a  woman  would  treat  "Tom 
Jones"  as  a  frivolous  book,  less  illuminating  than  some 
tedious  biography  or  history  book.  She  might  even  deny 
that  it  had  any  illumination  at  all.  ...  He  could  not  pre- 
vent a  sneer  from  his  retort  to  her  statement  that  she  sel- 
dom read  novels. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said,  "you  think  that  novels  are  not 
sufficiently  serious?" 

"Oh,  no,"  she  answered  quickly.  "I  just  haven't  time 
for  novel-reading!" 

That  seemed  to  him  to  be  worse  than  if  she  had  said 
that  she  preferred  to  read  solid  books.  A  novel,  in  her 
imagination,  was  a  light  diversion  in  which  one  only  in- 
dulged in  times  of  unusual  slackness.  No  wonder,  he 
thought  to  himself,  all  reformers  and  serious  people  make 
such  a  mess  of  the  social  system  when  they  despise  and 
ignore  the  principal  means  of  knowing  the  human  spirit. 

*  *  That 's  a  pity, '  *  he  said  aloud.    * '  I  should  have  thought 


CHANGING  WINDS  879 

that  you'd  find  novels  useful  to  you  in  your  work.  I  mean, 
there's  surely  more  chance  of  understanding  the  people 
of  the  eighteenth  century  if  you  read  Fielding's  *Tom 
Jones'  than  there  is  if  you  read  Leeky's  'England  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century.'  " 

"Is  there?"  said  Rachel. 

*'0f  course,  there  is,"  Gilbert  hurled  at  her  from  the 
other  side  of  the  table.  "Fielding  was  an  artist,  inspired 
by  God,  but  Lecky  was  simply  a  fact-pedlar,  inspired  by 
the  Board  of  Education.  Why  even  that  dull  ass,  Richard- 
son, makes  you  understand  more  about  his  period  than 
Lecky  does ! ' ' 

"Perhaps,"  said  Rachel,  in  a  tone  which  indicated  that 
there  was  no  doubt  in  her  mind  about  the  relative  values 
of  Lecky  and  Fielding.  She  turned  to  Henry.  "I  wish 
you'd  write  a  book  about  the  factory  system,"  she  said. 
' '  That  would  be  worth  doing ! ' ' 

He  disliked  the  suggestion  that  "Broken  Spears"  and 
"Drusilla"  had  not  been  worth  doing,  and  he  let  his 
resentment  of  her  attitude  towards  his  work  affect  the 
tone  of  his  voice  as  he  answered,  "I  don't  know  anything 
about  factories!" 

"You  should  learn  about  them,"  she  retorted. 

No,  he  did  not  like  this  woman,  aggressive  and  assertive. 
He  turned  to  speak  to  Mary  .  .  .  but  Rachel  Wynne  had 
not  finished  with  him. 

"I've  spent  six  months  in  the  north  of  England,"  she 
said,  reaching  for  the  salted  almonds.  "I've  seen  every 
kind  of  factory,  model  and  otherwise!" 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  answered,  vaguely  irritated  by  her.  He 
wished  that  she  would  talk  to  her  other  neighbour  and 
leave  him  in  peace  with  Mary.  As  an  Improved  Tory,  he 
knew  that  he  ought  to  get  all  the  information  about  fac- 
tories out  of  her  that  he  could,  but  as  Henry  Quinn,  he  had 
no  other  desire  than  to  be  quit  of  her  as  quickly  as  possible. 

"And  I  think  the  model  factories  are  no  better  than  the 
rotten  ones,"  she  went  on. 


«80  CHANGING  WINDS 

"What's  that  you  say?"  Roger  called  to  her  from  the 
other  side  of  the  table. 

She  repeated  her  remark.  '  *  I  went  over  a  model  factory 
last  week  ...  a  cocoa  and  chocolate  works  .  ,  .  and  I'd 
rather  be  a  tramp  tlian  work  in  it,"  she  went  on. 

"But  isn't  it  rather  wonderfully  organised?"  Roger 
asked. 

"Oh,  yes,  it's  marvellously  arranged.  There  are  baths 
and  gymnasia  and  continuation  classes  and  free  medical 
inspection  and  model  houses  and  savings  banks  and  all  the 
rest  of  it  .  .  .  but  I'd  rather  be  a  tramp,  I  tell  you.  .  .  . 
You  see,  even  with  the  best  of  employers,  genuinely  philan- 
thropic people  eager  to  deal  justly  with  the  workers  who 
make  their  fortunes  for  them,  the  factory  system  remains 
a  rotten  one.  You  can't  make  a  decent,  human  thing  out 
of  it  because  it's  fundamentally  vile!  ..." 

"My  dear  Rachel !  .  .  ."  Roger  began,  but  she  would  not 
listen  to  interruptions. 

"They  look  just  as  pale  and  'peeked'  in  model  factories 
as  they  do  in  bad  ones.  They're  cleaner,  that's  all.  The 
firm  sees  that  they  wash,  but  it  can't  prevent  them  from 
becoming  ill,  and  they're  all  ill.  They  don't  look  any  bet- 
ter than  the  people  in  the  bad  factories.  They  look  worse, 
because  they're  cleaner  and  you  can  see  their  illness  more 
easily.  But  that  isn't  all.  They  have  no  hope  of  ever 
controlling  the  firm  .  .  .  they'll  never  be  allowed  to  own 
the  factory  .  .  .  that  will  always  belong  to  the  Family. 
The  best  that  the  clever  ones  can  look  forward  to  is  a  little 
managership.  Most  of  them  can't  look  forward  to  any- 
thing but  being  drilled  and  washed  and  medically  in- 
spected and  modelly  housed  and  morally  controlled.  .  .  . 
Oh,  it  isn't  worth  it,  it  isn't  worth  it.  I'd  rather  be  a 
dirty,  insanitary  tramp!" 

A  kind  of  moral  fury  possessed  her,  and  they  sat  still, 
listening  to  her  without  interrupting  her. 

"I  saw  three  girls  at  a  machine,"  she  went  on,  "and  one 
of  them  did  some  little  thing  to  a  chocolate  box  and  then 


CHANGING  WINDS  281 

passed  it  on  to  the  second  girl  who  did  a  further  little  thing 
to  it  and  then  passed  it  to  the  third  girl  who  did  another 
little  thing  to  it,  and  then  it  was  finished,  and  that  was  all. 
They  do  that  every  day,  and  the  man  who  took  me  round 
told  me  that  the  firm  had  to  catch  'em  young,  otherwise 
they  can't  acquire  the  knack  of  it.  I  saw  girls  putting 
pieces  of  chocolate  into  tinfoil  so  quickly  that  you  could 
hardly  see  their  movements ;  and  they  do  that  all  day.  And 
they  have  to  be  caught  young  .  .  .  before  they've  properly 
tasted  life.  They  wouldn't  do  it  otherwise,  I  suppose. 
That's  your  factory  system  for  you!  And  think  of  the 
things  they  produce.  Chocolate  boxes  full  of  sweets! 
There  was  one  girl  who  spent  the  whole  of  her  working 
days  in  pasting  photographs  of  grinning  chorus  girls  on  to 
box-lids.  I  should  go  mad  if  I  had  to  look  at  that  soppy 
grin  all  day  long.  ..." 

Mrs.  Graham  murmured  gently,  but  her  words  were  not 
audible.  Rachel  would  not  have  heard  them  if  they  had 
been. 

"Well,"  said  Gilbert,  "what  do  you  want  to  do  about 
it?" 

"I'm  a  reactionary,"  Rachel  answered.  "I'm  against 
all  this  .  .  .  this  progress.  We're  simply  eating  up  peo- 
ple's lives,  and  paying  meanly  for  them.  I'd  destroy  all 
these  factories  .  .  .  the  whole  lot.  They  aren't  worth  the 
price.  And  I'd  go  back  to  decent  piggery.  What  is  the 
good  of  a  plate  when  it  means  that  some  girl  has  been 
poisoned  so  that  it  can  be  bought  cheaply?" 

"But  we  must  have  plates?"  Henry  said. 

"Why?"  she  retorted. 

"Well!"  he  rejoined,  smiling  at  her  as  one  smiles  at  a 
foolish  child. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  she  went  on,  "you  think  I'm  talking 
wildly.  I've  heard  all  about  your  Improved  Toryism. 
Roger's  told  me  about  it.  You  all  think  that  you  are  the 
anointed  ones,  and  that  the  bulk  of  people  are  born  to  do 
what  they're  told.    You  won't  have  whips  for  your  slaves 


282  CHANGING  WINDS 

.  ,  .  you'll  have  statutes.  You  won't  sell  them  .  .  .  you  11 
socialise  them.  Cogs  in  wheels,  you'll  make  them!  Oh,  it 
isn't  worth  while  living  like  that.  You  don't  even  let  a 
man  do  a  whole  job  .  .  .  you  only  let  him  do  a  part  of  one, 
and  you  're  trying  to  turn  him  into  an  automaton  more  and 
more  every  day.  He's  to  press  a  button  .  .  .  and  that's 
all.    Presently,  he'll  be  a  button!  ..." 

"My  dear  Rachel,"  Roger  said,  "you  don't  imagine,  do 
you,  that  the  whole  world's  going  to  turn  back  to  .  .  . 
piggery  as  you  call  it?  We've  spent  centuries  in  creating 
this  civilisation.  ..." 

"Is  it  worth  while?"  she  demanded. 

"Yes.  .  .  ." 

"Prove  it,"  she  insisted. 

"Well,  of  course,  that's  a  job,  isn't  it?  I  can't  prove  it 
in  a  few  minutes,  ..." 

"You  can't  prove  it,  Roger,"  she  interrupted,  "If  all 
this  civilisation  were  worth  while,  you  wouldn't  need  to 
prove  it :  it  would  be  obvious.  We  'd  only  have  to  look  out 
of  the  door  to  see  the  proof," 

"I  don't  say  that  the  factory  system  is  satisfactory  at 
present.    It  isn  't ;  but  it  can  be  improved.  ..." 

"No,  it  can't,  Roger.  It's  unimprovable,  I  dare  you  to 
go  to  any  model  factory  in  England  and  study  it  with  an 
honest  mind  and  then  say  that  it  is  worth  while.  It  makes 
the  people  ill  .  .  .  they  get  no  pleasure  out  of  their 
work.  .  .  ." 

"We  could  shorten  the  hours  in  factories,"  Henry  sug- 
gested. 

"If  you  do  that,  you  admit  that  the  thing  is  rotten,  and 
can  only  be  endured  in  short  shifts!"  she  retorted.  "And 
who  wants  his  hours  reduced?  A  healthy  man  wants  to 
work  as  long  as  he  can  stand  up.  I  don't  want  my  hours 
reduced.  I'll  go  on  working  until  I  drop  .  .  .  but  I 
wouldn't  work  for  two  seconds  if  I  didn't  like  the  job!" 
She  turned  again  to  Henry.  "Why  don't  you  write  a 
book  exposing  the  factory  system.    It  would  be  much  more 


CHANGING  WINDS  883 

useful  than  all  this  lovey-dovey  stuff.  I'd  give  the  world 
for  a  book  like  that  ...  as  good  as  Tolstoy's  'War  and 
Peace'  or  'Dickens's  'Oliver  Twist'!  ..." 


Mary  had  not  spoken  at  all  while  Rachel  harangued  them 
on  the  question  of  the  factory  system,  but  that  was  not 
surprising,  for  Rachel  had  not  given  any  of  them  a  chance 
to  say  more  than  two  or  three  words.  In  Ninian's  sitting- 
room,  when  Gilbert  turned  to  her  and  asked  her  what  she 
thought  of  factories,  she  blushed  a  little,  conscious  that 
they  had  all  turned  to  look  at  her,  and  answered  that  she 
had  never  seen  a  factory. 

"Never  seen  a  factory!"  Rachel  exclaimed,  and  was  off 
again  in  denunciation. 

Henry  went  and  sat  beside  Mary  while  Rachel  told  tales 
of  sweaters  that  caused  IVIrs.  Graham  to  cry  out  with  pain. 

' 'Mary ! "  he  said  to  her  under  his  breath. 

"Yes,  Quinny,"  she  answered,  turning  towards  him  and 
speaking  as  softly  as  he  had  spoken. 

He  fumbled  for  words.  "It's  .  .  .  it's  awfully  nice  to 
see  you  again,"  he  said. 

"It's  nice  to  see  you  all  again,"  she  replied. 

"You're  .  .  .  you're  so  different,"  he  went  on. 

"Am  I?"  She  paused  a  moment,  and  then,  smiling  at 
him,  said,  "So  are  you." 

"Am  I  very  different?"  he  asked. 

* '  In  some  ways.    You  're  quite  famous  now,  aren  't  you  ? ' ' 

"Famous?"  he  said  vaguely. 

"Yes.    Your  novels.  ..." 

He  laughed.     "Oh,  dear  no,  not  anything  like  famous!" 

"Well-known,  then." 

"Moderately  well-known.  That's  all.  But  what's  the 
point?" 

"Well,  that's  the  point,"  she  replied.    "You  were  only 


284  CHANGING  WINDS 

'  Quinny '  before,  but  now  you  're  the  moderately  well-known 
novelist,  and  I'm  afraid  of  you.  ..." 

"Don't  be  absurd,  Mary!" 

"But  I  am,  Quinny.  I  read  a  review  of  one  of  your 
books  in  some  paper,  and  it  called  you  a  very  wise  person, 
and  said  you  knew  a  great  deal  about  human  nature  or 
something  of  that  sort.  Well,  one  feels  rather  awful  in  the 
presence  of  a  person  like  that.     At  least,  I  do ! " 

He  felt  that  she  was  chaffing  him,  and  he  did  not  want  to 
be  chaffed  by  her.  He  liked  the  "Quinny"  and  "Mary" 
attitude,  and  he  wished  that  she  would  forget  that  he  had 
written  "wise"  books. 

"You're  making  fun  of  me,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  no,  I'm  not,"  she  answered  quickly.  "I'm  quite 
serious!" 

He  did  not  answer  for  a  few  moments.  He  could  hear 
Rachel's  passionate  voice  saying,  "They  get  seven  shillings 
a  week  ...  in  theory.  There  are  fines  ..."  and  he  won- 
dered why  it  was  that  she  repelled  him.  Her  sincerity  was 
palpable  ...  it  was  clear  that  she  was  hurt  by  the  mis- 
eries of  factory  girls  .  .  .  but  in  spite  of  her  sincerity,  he 
felt  that  he  could  not  bear  to  be  near  her.  "If  she'd  only 
talk  of  something  else, ' '  he  thought  .  .  .  and  then  returned 
to  Mary. 

'  *  Do  you  remember  that  time  at  Boveyhayne  ? "  he  said. 

"Which  time?"  she  asked. 

"The  first  time." 

"Yes." 

He  swallowed  and  then  went  on.  "Do  you  remember 
what  I  said  to  you  ...  on  the  platform  at  Whitcombe?" 

She  spoke  more  quickly  and  loudly  as  she  answered  him. 
"Oh,  yes,"  she  said,  "we  got  engaged,  didn't  we?  We 
were  kids!  ..." 

Mrs.  Graham  caught  the  word  "engaged." 

"Who's  engaged?"  she  asked. 

"No  one,  mother,"  Mary  answered.  "Quinny  and  I 
were  talking  about  the  time  when  we  were  engaged !  .  .  . " 


CHANGING  WINDS  285 

He  felt  a  frightful  fool.  What  on  earth  had  possessed 
her  that  she  should  treat  the  matter  in  this  fashion  ? 

"Were  you  engaged,  dear?"  Mrs.  Graham  said. 

"Oh,  yes,  mother.  Don't  you  remember?  Of  course, 
we  were  kids  then!  ..." 

Why  did  she  insist  on  the  fact  that  they  were  "kids" 
then? 

"I  remember  it,"  Ninian  interjected.  "Old  Quinny  was 
frightfully  sloppy  over  it.  Oh,  I  say,  I  met  Tom  Arthurs 
to-day.  He's  going  to  Southampton  to-morrow.  The  Gi- 
gantic's  starting  on  her  maiden  trip,  and  he's  going  over 
with  her.    I  wish  to  goodness  I  could  go  too ! ' ' 

'  *  Why  don 't  you  ? ' '  Mrs.  Graham  said.  It  seemed  to  her 
too  that  if  Ninian  wished  to  do  anything  that  was  sufficient 
reason  why  he  should  be  allowed  to  do  it. 

"I  can't  get  away,"  he  answered.  "We're  busier  than 
we've  ever  been.  But  I'm  going  to  Southampton  to  see 
the  Gigantic  start.  The  biggest  boat  in  the  world!  My 
goodness!  Tom's  awfully  excited  about  it.  You'd  think 
the  Gigantic  was  his  son !  .  .  ." 

Henry  thanked  heaven  that  at  last  the  conversation  had 
veered  from  factories  and  his  engagement  to  Mary.  He 
tried  to  fasten  it  to  the  Gigantic. 

"What  are  you  so  busy  about  that  you  can't  go  with 
Tom?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  heaps  of  things!  Old  Hare's  keen  on  building 
a  Channel  Tunnel,  and  he 's  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  work- 
ing the  thing  out ! ' ' 

Mrs.  Graham  had  always  imagined  that  the  proposal  to 
build  a  Tunnel  between  France  and  England  was  a  joke, 
and  she  said  so. 

"Good  heavens,  mother!"  Ninian  exclaimed.  "Old 
Hare  isn't  a  joke.  The  thing's  as  practicable  as  the  Tup- 
penny Tube.  People  have  been  experimenting  for  half^a- 
century  with  it.  Joke,  indeed!  They've  made  seven 
thousand  soundings  in  forty  years!  ..." 
"Really!"  said  Mrs.  Graham. 


286  CHANGING  WINDS 

"And  borings,  too  .  .  .  lots  of  them  ...  in  the  bed  of 
the  Channel.  They've  started  a  Tunnel,  two  thousand 
yards  of  it  from  Dover,  under  the  sea,  and  there  isn't  a 
flaw  in  it.  Hardly  any  water  comes  through,  although 
there  isn't  a  lining  to  the  walls  .  .  .  just  the  bare,  grey 
chalk.  I  was  awfully  sick  when  I  was  told  I  couldn't  go 
to  Harland  and  Wolff's,  but  I  don't  mind  now.  Build- 
ing a  Channel  Tunnel  is  as  big  a  job  as  building  the 
Gigantic  any  day,  and  Hare  is  as  brainy  as  Tom  Ar- 
thurs!" 

He  became  oratorical  about  the  Channel  Tunnel,  and  he 
told  them  stories  of  remarkable  borings  on  both  sides  of  the 
sea. 

"There's  a  big  thick  bed  of  grey  chalk  all  the  way  from 
England  to  France,"  he  said,  "and  the  water  simply  can't 
get  through  it.  They've  made  experimental  tubes  from 
our  side  and  from  the  French  side,  and  they  let  people  into 
them,  and  it  was  all  right.  No  mud,  no  water,  no  foul  air 
.  .  .  perfectly  sound!" 

He  quoted  Sartiaux,  the  French  engineer,  and  Sir  Fran- 
cis Fox,  the  English  engineer.  "They  don't  fool  about 
with  wildcat  schemes,  I  can  tell  you.  Why,  Fox  built  the 
Mersey  Tunnel  and  the  Simplon  Tunnel  .  .  .  and  the 
Channel  Tunnel  is  as  easy  as  that!" 

There  were  to  be  two  tubes,  each  capable  of  carrying  the 
ordinary  British  railway,  bored  through  a  bed  of  cenomian 
chalk,  two  hundred  feet  thick  on  an  average. 

"We  could  have  an  extra  tunnel  for  motor-cars,  if  nec- 
essary!" said  Ninian.  "Just  think  of  the  difference 
there 'd  be  if  we  had  the  Tunnel.  You  could  buzz  from 
London  to  Paris  in  five  or  six  hours  without  changing,  and 
you'd  never  get  seasick!  ..." 

"That  would  be  nice,"  said  Mrs.  Graham. 

"And  you'd  be  safer  in  the  Tunnel  than  you'd  be  on  the 
Channel.  There 'd  be  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  of  water- 
tight chalk  between  you  and  the  sea!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  «87 

They  argued  about  the  Tunnel.  How  long  would  it  take 
to  construct  ?  * '  Oh,  six  or  seven  years ! ' '  Ninian  answered 
airily.  ''What  about  War?  Supposing  England  and 
France  went  to  War  with  each  other  ? ' ' 

"We  could  flood  a  long  section  of  the  Tunnel  from  our 
side,  and  they  couldn't  pump  the  water  out  from  theirs," 
he  answered.  "Of  course,  I  don't  know  much  about  it,  but 
when  you  get  chaps  like  Hare  and  Sartiaux  and  Fox  talk- 
ing seriously  about  it,  you  listen  seriously  to  them.  Any- 
how, I  do.  Old  Hare  told  me  yesterday  I  was  getting  on 
nicely!  ..." 

Mrs,  Graham  was  delighted.  "Did  he,  dear?"  she  bur- 
bled at  Ninian. 

"Yes,"  Ninian  answered,  "he  said  I  wasn't  such  an  ass 
as  he  'd  thought  I  was.    Oh,  I  'm  getting  on  all  right ! ' ' 


Henry  sat  back  in  his  chair  while  they  talked,  and  let 
his  mind  fill  with  thoughts  of  Mary.  She  was  listening  to 
Ninian,  not  as  if  she  understood  all  that  he  was  saying,  but 
as  if  she  were  proud  of  him,  and  while  he  watched  her,  he 
felt  his  old  affection  for  her  surging  up  in  his  heart.  He 
had  described  a  young,  fresh  girl  in  "Drusilla,"  and  he 
had  fallen  in  love  with  his  description.  Now,  looking  at 
INIary,  he  realised  that  unconsciously  he  had  drawn  her 
portrait.  * '  I  must  have  been  in  love  with  her  all  the  time, ' ' 
he  thought,  "even  when  I  was  running  after  Sheila  Mor- 
gan!" 

He  looked  at  her  so  steadily  that  she  felt  his  gaze,  and 
she  turned  to  look  at  him.  She  smiled  at  him  as  she  did  so, 
and  he  smiled  back  at  her. 

"Isn't  it  interesting  to  hear  about  the  Tunnel?"  she 
said. 

"Eh?  .  .  .  Oh,  yes!    Yes.    Awfully  interesting.  .  .  ." 


288  CHANGING  WINDS 


"You  know,"  said  Roger  when  Mrs.  Graham  and  Mary 
and  Rachel  had  gone,  "we  really  haven't  talked  enough 
about  this  factory  system.  Rachel 's  wild  about  it,  of  course 
.  .  .  she's  a  girl  .  .  .  but  she's  got  more  sense  on  her  side 
than  we  have  on  ours.  It  really  isn't  any  good  ignoring 
it.  It's  too  big  to  be  overlooked.  I  think  we  ought  to  have 
a  course  of  talks  about  the  whole  thing.  We  could  get 
people  to  come  and  tell  us  all  they  know.  Rachel's  got  a  lot 
of  information.  We  could  pick  it  out  of  her.  And  then 
there's  that  woman  .  .  .  what's  her  name  .  .  .  Mc  some- 
thing .  .  .  who  knows  all  about  factories  .  .  .  Mc  Mc 
Mc  .  .  ." 

"Mary  McArthur,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Yes.  That's  her  name.  I  wonder  if  she'd  come  and 
dine  with  us.  You  know,  we  haven't  had  any  women. 
That 's  an  oversight,  isn  't  it  ? "  He  walked  towards  the  door 
as  he  spoke.  "I'm  going  to  bed  now,"  he  said.  "I've  got 
a  county  court  case  in  the  morning  at  Croydon,  and  I  shall 
have  to  get  up  early.    Good-night ! ' ' 

"Good-night,  Roger!"  they  murmured  sleepily. 

"Oh,  by  the  way,"  he  added,  "Rachel  and  I  are  en- 
gaged.   I  thought  I'd  tell  you!" 

He  shut  the  door  behind  him. 


They  sat  up,  gaping  at  the  closed  door. 

"What'd  he  say?"  said  Ninian. 

"He  says  he's  engaged  to  that  blooming  orator!"  Gil- 
bert answered. 

"But,  damn  it,  why?"  said  Ninian. 

"And  we've  got  the  lease  of  this  house  for, another  two 
years!"  Henry  exclaimed.  "I  suppose  he'll  want  to  get 
married  and  ...  all  that!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  289 

They  were  silent  for  a  while,  contemplating  this  strange 
disruption  of  their  affairs. 

"Of  course,  people  do  get  engaged!"  said  Ninian,  and 
then  he  relapsed  into  silence. 

**I've  been  in  love  myself,"  Gilbert  said,  "but  .  .  .  this 
is  excessive.  We  ought  to  do  something.  Can't  we  get  up 
a  memorial  or  something?  ..." 

Ninian  sat  upright,  pointing  a  finger  at  them.  "You 
know,  chaps,"  he  exclaimed,  "Roger's  ashamed  of  himself. 
He  didn  't  tell  us  'til  he  'd  got  to  the  door,  and  then  he  damn 
well  hooked  it!" 

"He's  been  trapped,"  Gilbert  said.  "Females  are  al- 
ways trapping  chaps !  .  .  . " 

"We  ought  to  save  him  from  himself!"  Ninian  stood  up 
as  he  spoke. 

"But  supposing  he  doesn't  want  to  be  saved?"  Henry 
asked. 

"We'll  save  him  all  the  same,"  Ninian  answered. 

"Let's  go  on  a  deputation  to  him,"  Gilbert  suggested. 
"We  will  put  it  reasonably  to  him.  We'll  tell  him  that  he 
mustn't  do  this  thing.  .  .  .  Oh,  Lord,  coves,  it's  no  good. 
This  house  is  doomed.    A  female  has  done  it !" 

"If  it  had  been  you,  Gilbert,  or  Quinny,"  said  Ninian, 
"I'd  have  thought  it  was  natural.  You're  that  sort!  But 
old  Roger  .  .  .  well,  there's  no  doubt  about  it,  God  moves 
in  a  mysterious  way.  His  wonders  to  perform.  Let's  go  to 
bed.    I'm  fed-up  with  everything!" 

7 

Henry  switched  off  the  light  and  got  into  bed.  He  shut 
his  eyes  and  tried  to  sleep,  but  sleep  would  not  come  to  him. 
He  lay  blinking  at  the  ceiling  for  a  while,  and  then  he  got 
up  and  went  into  his  sitting-room  and  got  out  his  manu- 
script and  began  to  write.  He  wrote  steadily  for  half-an- 
hour,  and  then  he  put  down  his  pen  and  read  over  what  he 
had  written. 


290  CHANGING  WINDS 

"No,"  he  said,  crumpling  the  paper  and  throwing  it  into 
the  wastepaper  basket,  "that  won't  do!" 

He  walked  about  the  room  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then 
he  went  back  to  bed,  and  lay  there  with  his  hands  clasped 
about  his  head. 

"I  don't  see  why  I  shouldn't  get  married  myself,"  he 
said,  and  then  he  went  to  sleep. 


THE  SEVENTH  CHAPTER 


In  the  morning,  Ninian  and  Roger  rose  early,  for  Ninian 
was  going  to  Southampton  to  see  the  Gigantic  start  on  her 
maiden  voyage  to  America,  and  Roger  had  a  ease  at  a 
county  court  outside  London.  In  a  vague  way,  Ninian  had 
intended  to  talk  to  Roger  about  his  engagement,  to  reason 
with  him,  as  he  put  it.  Gilbert  had  pointed  out  that  the 
chief  employment  of  women  is  to  disrupt  the  friendships  of 
men,  "Men,"  he  had  said  to  Ninian  and  Henry  after 
Roger  had  gone  to  bed, ' '  take  years  to  make  up  a  friendship, 
and  then  a  female  comes  along  and  busts  it  up  in  a  couple 
of  weeks!"  Ninian  did  not  intend  to  let  Miss  Rachel 
Wynne  break  up  their  friendship,  and  he  planned  a  long, 
comprehensive  and  settling  conversation  with  Roger  on  the 
subject  of  females  generally  and  of  Rachel  Wynne  particu- 
larly. In  bed,  he  had  invented  an  extraordinarily  con- 
vincing argument,  before  which  Roger  must  collapse,  but 
by  the  time  he  had  finished  shaving,  the  argument  had  van- 
ished from  his  mind,  and  his  convincing  speech  shrivelled 
into  a  halting,  "I  say,  Roger,  old  chap,  it's  a  bit  thick,  you 
know!"  and  even  that  ceased  to  exist  when  he  saw  Roger, 
with  the  Times  propped  against  the  sugar  bowl,  eating 
bacon  and  eggs  as  easily  as  if  he  had  never  betrothed  him- 
self to  any  woman. 

"Hilloa,  Roger!"  said  Ninian,  sitting  down  at  the  table, 
and  reaching  for  the  toast. 

' '  Hilloa,  Ninian ! ' '  Roger  murmured,  without  looking  up. 

Magnolia  entered  with  Ninian 's  breakfast  and  placed  it 
before  him. 

291 


292  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Anything  in  the  Times f"  Ninian  said,  pouring  out  cof- 
fee. 

"Usual  stuff.    The  bacon's  salt!  ..." 

The  time,  Ninian  thought,  was  hardly  suitable  for  a  few 
home-thrusting  words  on  the  subject  of  marriage,  so  he 
reminded  Koger  that  he  was  going  to  Southampton. 

' '  Tom  Arthurs  has  promised  to  show  me  over  as  much  of 
the  Gigantic  as  we  can  manage  in  a  couple  of  hours.  That 
won't  be  as  much  as  I'd  like  to  see,  but  I'll  try  and  go  over 
her  when  she  comes  back  from  New  York.  Any  mustard 
about?" 

"You'll  be  back  again  to-night,  I  suppose?" 

"Probably.  You're  right  .  .  .  this  bacon  is  salt,  damn 
it!" 

Roger  rose  from  the  table  and  moved  to  the  window 
where  he  stood  for  a  while  looking  out  on  the  garden.  It 
seemed  to  Ninian  that  in  a  moment  or  two  he  would  speak 
of  his  engagement,  and  so  he  sat  still,  waiting  for  him  to 
begin. 

"Well,"  said  Roger,  turning  away  from  the  window  and 
feeling  for  his  watch,  "I  must  be  off.     So  long,  Ninian !" 

He  went  out  of  the  room  quickly  and  in  a  little  while, 
Ninian  heard  the  street  door  banging  behind  him. 

"Damn,"  he  said  to  himself,  "I've  just  remembered 
what  I  was  going  to  say  to  him ! ' ' 

He  had  finished  his  breakfast  and  left  the  house  before 
Gilbert  and  Henry  came  down  from  their  rooms.  Henry 
was  too  tired  to  talk  much,  and  Gilbert,  finding  him  un- 
communicative, made  no  effort  to  make  conversation.  He 
picked  up  the  Times  and  contented  himself  with  the  morn- 
ing's news,  while  Henry  read  a  letter  from  John  Marsh 
which  had  come  by  the  first  post. 

"7'm  interested  in  your  Improved  Tories,"  he  wrote, 
"/  think  the  scheme  is  excellent.  You  sharpen  your  wits 
on  other  people's,  and  you  keep  in  touch  with  all  kinds  of 
opinions.  That's  excellent!  Your  father,  and  you,  too, 
used  to  say  we  were  rather  one-eyed  w  Dublin,  and  I  think 


CHANGING  WINDS  293 

there's  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  that,  so  I'm  trying  to  get 
a  group  of  people  in  Dublin  to  form  a  society  somewhat 
similar  to  your  Improved  Tories.  Did  you  ever  meet  a  man 
called  Arthur  Griffiths  when  you  were  heref  He  is  a  very 
able,  but  not  very  sociable,  man,  and  so  people  do  not  know 
him  as  well  as  they  ought  to  .  .  .  and  his  tongue  is  like  a 
flail  .  .  .  so  that  most  of  the  people  who  do  know  him, 
don't  like  him.  The  Nationalist  M.P.'s  detest  him.  Well, 
several  years  ago  he  founded  a  society  which  he  called  the 
Sinn  Fein  Movement,  and  the  principle  of  the  thing  is  ex- 
cellent up  to  a  point.  Do  you  remember  any  of  your 
Gaelic f  Sinn  Fein  means  'we  ourselves,'  and  that  is  the 
principle  of  the  society.  The  object  is  to  induce  Irishmen 
to  do  for  themselves,  things  that  are  done  for  them  by 
Englishmen.  It  ought  to  appeal  to  your  father.  Griffiths 
got  the  idea,  I  think,  frcfm  Hungary.  We're  to  withdraw 
our  representatives  from  the  English  parliament  and  start 
an  Irish  Government  on  the  basis  of  a  Grand  Council  of 
the  County  Councils.  We're  to  have  our  own  consular 
service,  our  own  National  Bank  and  Stock  Exchange  and 
Civil  Service,  and  a  mercantile  marine  so  that  we  can  trade 
direct  with  other  countries.  And  we're  to  nationalise  the 
railways  and  canals  and  bogs  {which  are  to  be  reclaimed) 
and  take  over  insurance  and  education  and  so  forth.  All 
this  is  to  be  done  by  the  General  Council  of  the  County 
Councils  in  opposition  to  anything  of  the  sort  that  is  done 
by  the  English  Government  in  preparation  for  the  day 
when  there  is  an  Irish  Government  when,  of  course,  the 
General  Council  will  be  merged  in  the  Government.  Oh, 
and  we're  to  have  Protection,  too!  It  seems  rather  a  lot, 
does^n't  it?  but  the  idea  is  excellent  and,  if  modified  con- 
siderably, fairly  practical.  Griffiths  has  antiquated  notions 
of  economics,  however,  and  some  of  the  things  he  says  pre- 
vent me  from  joining  him.  His  great  idea  is  to  attract 
capital  to  Ireland  by  telling  capitalists  how  cheap  Irish 
labour  is.  That  seems  to  me  to  be  an  abominable  proposal, 
likely  to  lead  to  something  worse  than  Wigan  and  all  those 


294  CHANGING  WINDS 


1 


miserable  English  towns  your  father  dislikes  so  heartily. 
And  probably,  of  all  his  proposals,  it  is  the  most  likely  to 
succeed.  That's  why  I'm  opposed  to  him  at  present.  1 
cannot  bear  the  thought  of  seeing  England  duplicated  in 
Ireland.  But  the  scheme  has  merit,  and  Galway  and  I  are 
plotting  to  capture  the  mx)vement  from  Griffiths.  We  think 
that  if  we  could  graft  the  Sinn  Fein  on  to  the  Gaelic 
League,  we'd  be  on  the  way  to  establishing  Irish  independ- 
ence. Our  people  are  becoming  very  materialistic,  and  we 
must  quicken  their  spirits  again  somehow.  Douglas  Hyde 
is  the  trouble,  of  course.  He  wants  to  keep  the  Gaelic 
League  clear  of  politics.  As  if  you  can  possibly  keep  pol- 
itics out  of  anything  in  Ireland!  We  want  to  make  every 
Gaelic  Leaguer  a  conscious  rebel  against  English  beliefs  and 
English  habits.  I  wish  you'd  come  over  and  join  us.  It'll 
be  very  hard,  but  exhilarating,  work.  You've  no  notion  of 
how  sordid  and  money-grubbing  and  English  the  mass  of 
our  people  are  becoming.  It's  a  man's  job  to  destroy  that 
spirit  and  revive  the  old,  careless,  generous,  God-loving 
Irish  one.  ..." 

"Still  harping  on  that  old  nationality,"  Henry  thought 
to  himself,  when  he  had  finished  reading  the  letter. 

He  was  in  no  mood  for  thoughts  on  Ireland.  His  mind 
was  still  full  of  the  idea  that  had  come  into  his  head  the 
previous  night.  Why  should  he  not  get  married?  The 
idea  attracted  and  repelled  him.  It  would,  he  thought,  be 
very  pleasant  to  live  with  .  .  .  with  Mary,  say  ...  to  love 
her  and  be  loved  by  her  .  .  .  very  pleasant  .  .  .  but  one 
would  have  to  accept  responsibilities,  and  there  would  prob- 
ably be  children.  He  would  dislike  having  to  leave  Ninian 
and  Roger  and  Gilbert,  particularly  Gilbert,  and  his  share 
in  the  meetings  of  the  Improved  Tories  would  begin  to 
dwindle.  On  the  other  hand,  there  would  be  Mary.  .  . 
If  he  were  to  lose  his  friends  and  the  careless,  cultured  life 
they  led  in  the  Bloomsbury  house,  he  would  gain  Mary, 
and  perhaps  she  would  more  than  compensate  for  them.  .  .  . 


CHANGING  WINDS  296 

Gilbert  interrupted  his  thoughts. 

"Rum  go,  this  about  Roger,  isn't  it?"  he  said. 

Henry  nodded  his  head.  "I  hadn't  any  idea  of  it,"  he 
replied.  "  I  'd  never  even  heard  of  her  until  he  said  she  was 
coming  to  dinner!" 

"I  had,"  Gilbert  said,  "but  I  didn't  think  he  was  going 
to  let  the  life  force  catch  hold  of  him.  Close  chap,  Roger ! 
He  never  gives  himself  away  .  .  .  and  that 's  the  sort  that 's 
most  romantic.  You  and  I  are  obviously  sloppy,  Quinny, 
but  somehow  we  miss  all  the  messes  that  reticent,  close 
chaps  like  Roger  fall  into.  You  don't  much  like  her,  do 
you?" 

"Well,  I'm  not  what  you  might  call  smitten  by  her,  but 
that 's  because  she  seems  to  think  I  'm  wasting  time  in  writ- 
ing novels.  She 's  too  strenuous  for  me.  I  like  women  who 
relax  sometimes.  She'll  orate  to  him  every  night,  just  as 
she  orated  to  us,  about  people's  wrongs.  ..." 

"Mind,  she's  clever!"  said  Gilbert. 

"Oh,  I  don't  deny  that.  That's  part  of  my  case  against 
her.    Really  and  truly,  Gilbert,  do  you  like  clever  women  ? ' ' 

"Really  and  truly,  Quinny,  I  don't.  Perhaps  that's  not 
the  way  to  put  it.  I  like  talking  to  clever  women,  but  I 
shouldn't  like  to  marry  one  of  them.  I'm  clever  myself, 
and  perhaps  that's  why.  There  isn't  room  for  more  than 
one  clever  person  in  a  family,  and  I  think  a  clever  man 
should  marry  an  intelligently  stupid  woman,  and  vice  versa. 
You  can  argue  with  clever  women,  but  you  can't  kiss  them 
or  flirt  with  them.  All  the  clever  ones  I've  ever  known 
have  had  something  hard  in  them  .  .  .  like  a  lump  of  steel. 
Men  aren't  like  that!  They  can  be  hard,  of  course,  but 
they  aren't  always  exhibiting  their  hardness.  Clever 
women  are." 

Henry  tossed  Marsh's  letter  across  the  table  to  Gilbert. 

"Read  that,"  he  said,  "while  I  look  through  the  Times!" 

They  both  rose  from  the  table,  and  sat  for  a  while  in  the 
armchairs  on  either  side  of  the  fireplace. 


296  CHANGING  WINDS 

"You  know,  Quinny,"  said  Gilbert,  as  he  took  Marsh's 
letter  out  of  its  envelope,  "I  often  think  we're  awfully- 
young,  all  of  us!" 

"Young?" 

"Yes.  Immature  .  .  .  and  all  that.  We're  frightfully 
clever,  of  course,  but  really  we  don't  know  much,  and  yet 
you're  writing  books  and  I'm  writing  plays  and  Ninian's 
building  Tunnels  and  Roger's  playing  ducks  and  drakes 
with  the  law  .  .  .  and  not  one  of  us  is  thirty  yet.  Lord, 
I  wish  Roger  hadn't  got  engaged.  That  sort  of  thing 
makes  a  man  think ! ' ' 

He  read  Marsh 's  letter  and  then  passed  it  back  to  Henry. 

"Seems  all  right,"  he  said.  "It's  a  pity  those  Irish 
fellows  haven't  got  a  wider  outlook.  Sitting  there  fussing 
over  their  mouldy  island  when  there's  the  whole  world  to 
fuss  over !  I  must  be  oif  soon.  There 's  a  rehearsal  of  my 
play  this  morning.  ..." 

"I  say,  Gilbert,"  Henry  interrupted,  "do  you  think  I 
ought  to  go  and  join  this  Irish  Renascence  business?" 

"How  can  I  tell?  It  probably  won't  amount  to  much. 
I  should  take  an  intelligent  interest  in  it,  if  I  were  you. 
Perhaps  you  can  induce  Marsh  to  come  over  and  talk  to 
the  Improved  Tories  about  it.  What  are  you  doing  this 
morning  ? ' ' 

"Oh,  working!" 

"Well,  so  long!" 

"So  long,  Gilbert.    You'll  be  back  to  lunch,  I  suppose?" 

"I  don't  think  so.  The  rehearsals  are  very  long  now. 
You  see,  the  play's  to  be  done  on  Wednesday.  ..." 


When  Gilbert  had  gone,  Henry,  having  glanced  through 
the  Times,  went  up  to  his  room  and  began  to  write,  but  he 
did  not  continue  at  his  manuscript  for  very  long.  The 
words  would  not  roll  lightly  off  his  pen:  they  fell  off  and 
lay  inertly  about  the  paper.    He  was  accustomed  now  to 


CHANGING  WINDS  297 

periods  during  which  his  mind  seemed  to  have  lost  its 
power  to  operate,  and  he  was  not  alarmed  by  them.  He 
knew  that  it  was  useless  to  attempt  to  do  any  work  that 
morning,  so  he  left  his  room  and,  telling  Mrs.  Clutters  that 
he  would  not  return  to  lunch,  went  out  of  the  house  and 
wandered  about  the  streets  for  a  while  without  any  pur- 
pose. It  was  not  until  he  saw  the  sign  on  a  passing  motor- 
'bus  that  he  decided  on  what  he  should  do.  "Hyde  Park 
Corner"  was  on  the  sign,  and  he  called  to  the  conductor 
and  presently  mounted  to  the  roof  of  the  'bus  and  was 
driven  towards  the  Park. 

"I  wonder,"  he  thought  to  himself,  "whether  I  shall  see 
Lady  Cecily  to-day!" 

Lady  Cecily  had  curiously  disappeared  from  their  lives. 
Gilbert,  absorbed  in  the  production  of  his  play,  had  not 
spoken  of  her  again,  nor  had  he  made  any  mention  of  his 
proposal  to  leave  London  and  go  to  Anglesey.  He  had  re- 
signed from  the  staff  of  the  Daily  Echo,  and,  since  he  no 
longer  attended  first-nights  at  the  theatre,  he  had  not  seen 
Lady  Cecily  since  the  night  on  which  "The  Ideal  Hus- 
band" was  revived.  Henry  had  said  to  himself  on  several 
occasions  that  he  would  go  and  see  Lady  Cecily,  but  he 
had  not  done  so.  He  did  not  care  to  go  alone,  and  he  cared 
less  to  ask  Gilbert  to  go  with  him  .  .  .  but  to-day,  as  sud- 
denly as  she  had  quitted  his  thoughts.  Lady  Cecily  came 
into  them  again,  and,  as  he  sat  on  top  of  the  omnibus,  he 
hoped  that  he  would  see  her  in  the  Park.  "If  not,"  he 
said  to  himself,  "  I  '11  call  on  her  this  afternoon ! ' ' 

He  descended  from  the  'bus  at  Hyde  Park  Corner  and 
hastily  entered  the  Park.  He  crossed  to  the  Achilles  mon- 
ument and  debated  with  himself  as  to  whether  he  should 
sit  down  or  walk  about,  and  decided  to  sit  down.  If  Lady 
Cecily  were  in  the  Park,  he  told  himself,  she  would  pass  his 
chair  some  time  during  the  morning.  He  chose  a  seat  near 
the  railings  and  sat  down  and  waited.  There  was  a  con- 
tinual flow  of  carriages  and  cars,  but  none  of  them  con- 
tained Lady  Cecily,  and  when  he  had  been  sitting  for  al- 


298  CHANGING  WINDS 

most  an  hour,  he  told  himself  that  he  was  not  likely  to  see 
her  that  morning.  He  rose,  as  he  said  this  to  himself,  and 
turned  to  walk  across  the  grass  towards  Rotten  Row,  and 
as  he  turned,  he  saw  Jimphy.  He  was  not  anxious  to  meet 
Jimphy  again,  and  he  pretended  not  to  see  him,  but  Jimphy 
came  up  to  him,  smiling  affably,  and  said  *'Hilloa,  Quinn, 
old  chap!"  so  he  had  to  be  as  amiable  as  he  could  in  re- 
sponse to  the  greeting. 

Jimphy  wanted  to  know  why  it  was  that  he  and  Henry 
had  not  met  again  since  the  night  that  *  *  Cecily  let  a  chap 
in  for  a  damn  play,"  and  reminded  him  of  their  engage- 
ment to  visit  the  Empire  together.  ** Anyhow,"  he  said, 
"you  can  come  and  lunch  with  us.  Cecily '11  be  glad  to  see 
you.  I  said  I'd  come  home  to  lunch  if  I  could  find  some 
one  worth  bringing  with  me,  so  that's  all  right!" 

"How  is  Lady  Cecily?"  Henry  asked,  as  he  and  Jimphy 
left  the  Park  together. 

"Oh,  I  expect  she's  all  right,"  Jimphy  answered.  "I 
forgot  to  ask  this  morning,  but  if  she  'd  been  seedy  or  any- 
thing she'd  have  told  me  about  it,  so  I  suppose  she's  all 
right!" 

"When's  this  play  of  Farlow's  coming  on?"  Jimphy 
asked  on  the  doorstep  of  his  house. 

"Wednesday,"  Henry  answered. 

"Cecily's  made  me  promise  to  go  and  see  it  with  her. 
What  sort  of  a  piece  is  it  ? " 

They  entered  the  house  as  he  spoke. 

"It's  excellent.  ..." 

"Is  it  comic?" 

"Well,  I  suppose  it  is.  He  calls  it  a  comedy,"  Henry 
said. 

"So  long  as  there's  a  laugh  in  it,  I  don't  mind  going  to 
see  it.  I  can't  stand  these  weepy  bits.  'Hamlet'  and  that 
sort  of  stuff.  Enough  to  give  a  chap  the  pip!  Oh,  here's 
Cecily!" 

Henry  turned  to  look  up  the  stairs  down  which  Lady 
Cecily  was  coming,  and  then  he  went  forward  to  greet  her. 


CiLAJ^GING  WINDS  299 

*  *  How  nice  of  you, '  *  she  said.     * '  Has  Gilbert  come,  too  ? " 

"No,"  he  answered,  chilled  by  her  question,  "He  has 
a  rehearsal  this  morning ! ' ' 

"Oh,  yes,  of  course,"  she  said.  "His  play!  I  forgot. 
"We're  going  to  see  it  on  Wednesday.    I  hope  it's  good!" 

"It's  very  good,"  Henry  replied. 


Jimphy  left  them  after  lunch.  He  was  awfully  sorry, 
old  chap,  to  have  to  tear  himself  away  and  all  that,  but  the 
fact  was  he  had  an  appointment  ...  an  important  ap- 
pointment .  .  .  and  of  course  a  chap  had  to  keep  an  im- 
portant appointment.  .  .  . 

"We'll  forgive  yon,  Jimphy!"  Lady  Cecily  said,  and 
then  he  went  away,  begging  Henry  to  remember  that  they 
must  go  to  the  Empire  together  one  night. 

"Well?"  said  Lady  Cecily  when  her  husband  had  gone, 
"how  are  you  all  getting  on?" 

She  was  reclining  on  a  couch,  with  her  feet  resting  on 
a  cushion,  and  as  she  asked  her  question  she  pointed  to  an- 
other cushion  lying  on  a  chair.  He  fetched  it  and  put  it 
behind  her  back. 

' '  Splendidly, ' '  he  answered.    ' '  Is  that  right  ? ' ' 

She  settled  herself  more  comfortably.  "Yes,  thanks," 
she  said.    '  *  I  read  your  novel, ' '  she  went  on. 

"Did  you  like  it?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Of  course,  I  liked  it.  I  suppose  you're  writ- 
ing another  book  now!"  He  nodded  his  head,  and  she 
went  on.  "I  wish  I  could  write  books,  but  of  course  I 
can't.  IMr.  Lensley  says  I  live  books.  Isn't  that  nice  of 
him?  Do  you  put  real  people  in  your  books,  or  do  you 
make  them  all  up?  Do  you  know,  I  think  I'll  have  an- 
other cigarette!" 

He  passed  the  box  of  cigarettes  to  her  and  held  it  while 
she  made  up  her  mind  whether  she  would  smoke  an  Egyp- 
tian or  a  Turkish.    Her  delicate  fingers  moved  indeci- 


300  CHANGING  WINDS 

sively  from  the  one  brand  to  the  other.  "You  like  Turk- 
ish, don't  you?"  he  said,  wishing  that  he  could  take  her 
slender  hand  in  his  and  hold  it  forever. 

"Choose  one  for  me,"  she  said,  capriciously,  lying  back 
and  clasping  her  hands  about  her  head. 

He  took  a  cigarette  from  the  box  and  offered  it  to  her, 
but  she  did  not  hold  out  her  hand  to  take  it,  and  he  under- 
stood that  he  was  to  place  it  between  her  lips.  His  fingers 
trembled  as  he  did  so,  and  he  turned  hurriedly  to  find  the 
matches. 

"Behind  you,"  she  said,  and  he  turned  and  picked  them 
up. 

He  lit  a  match  and  held  it  to  her  cigarette,  and  while  he 
held  it,  her  fingers  touched  his.  She  had  taken  hold  of  the 
cigarette  to  remove  it  from  her  lips.  .  .  .  He  blew  out  the 
light  and  threw  the  match  into  the  ash-tray,  and  then  went 
and  sat  down  in  the  deep  chair  in  which  he  had  been  sitting 
when  she  asked  him  to  get  the  cushion  for  her. 

"Why  didn't  you  call  before?"  she  said,  lazily  blowing 
the  smoke  up  into  the  air.  • 

It  was  difficult  to  say  why  he  had  not  called  before,  so 
he  answered  vaguely.  There  had  been  so  much  to  do  of 
late.  .  .  . 

"And  Gilbert?  He  doesn't  rehearse  all  day  long,  does 
he?" 

"No,  not  all  day,  but  he's  pretty  tired  by  the  time  he 
gets  home. ' ' 

"Why  didn't  he  come  to  the  Savoy  that  night?"  she 
asked. 

He  wished  she  would  not  talk  about  Gilbert.  He  could 
not  tell  her  the  real  reason  why  Gilbert  had  not  kept  his 
promise  to  join  the  supper-party  and  he  was  a  poor  hand 
at  inventing  convincing  lies. 

"There  was  some  trouble  at  his  office,  I  think,"  he  said, 
"and  he  couldn't  get  away  until  too  late!  ..." 

"He  didn't  write  or  come  to  see  me!"  she  protested. 

It  was  probable  that  Gilbert  forgot  his  duty  in  the  ex- 


CHANGING  WINDS  SOI 

eitement  of  hearing  that  his  play  was  to  be  produced.  .  .  . 

"I  suppose  so,"  she  said. 

She  talked  to  him  about  his  books  and  about  Ireland. 
She  had  been  to  Dublin  once  and  had  gone  to  the  Vice- 
regal Lodge  .  .  .  Lady  Dundrum  had  taken  her  to  some 
function  there  .  .  .  and  she  was  eager  for  the  tittle-tattle 
of  the  Court.  "Was  it  true  that  Lord  Kelpie  was  indifferent 
to  his  lady?  .  .  .  Henry  knew  very  little  of  the  Dublin 
gossip.  "I  haven't  been  there  since  I  left  Trinity,"  he 
said,  in  explanation,  "and  the  only  people  who  write  to  me 
don't  take  any  interest  in  Court  functions!" 

He  rose  to  go,  but  she  asked  him  to  stay  to  tea  with  her, 
and  so  he  remained. 

"I  don't  suppose  any  one  will  call,"  she  said,  ''but  in 
case  ..." 

She  told  a  servant  that  she  was  ''not  at  home"  to  any 
one,  and  Henry,  wondering  why  she  had  done  so,  felt 
vaguely  flattered  and  as  vaguely  nervous.  Her  beauty 
filled  him  with  desire  and  apprehension  and  left  him  half 
eager,  half  afraid  to  be  alone  with  her.  He  understood 
Gilbert's  fear  that  if  he  yielded  to  Cecily,  she  would  de- 
stroy him.  There  was  something  in  this  woman  that  over- 
powered the  senses,  that  made  a  man  as  will-less  as  a  log, 
and  left  him  in  the  end,  spent,  exhausted,  incapable.  He 
saw  the  danger  that  had  frightened  Gilbert,  but  he  could 
not  make  up  his  mind  to  run  away  from  it.  There  was 
something  so  exquisitely  sensual  in  her  look  as  she  lay  on 
the  couch,  looking  at  him  and  chattering  in  the  Lensley 
style,  that  he  felt  inclined  to  yield  himself  to  her,  even  if 
in  yielding  he  should  lose  everything. 

"Of  course,"  he  said  to  himself,  "this  is  all  imagination. 
She  doesn  't  want  me  at  all  .  .  .  she  wants  Gilbert ! ' ' 

She  asked  for  another  cigarette,  and  he  took  one  and 
placed  it  in  her  lips  and  lit  it  for  her,  and  again  his  fingers 
touched  hers,  and  again  he  trembled  with  unaccountable 
emotion.  As  he  bent  over  her,  holding  the  match  to  the 
cigarette,  he  felt  the  blood  rushing  to  his  head  and  for  a 


302  CHANGING  WINDS 

moment  or  two  his  eyes  were  blurred  and  he  could  not  see 
clearly.  Then  his  eyes  cleared  and  he  saw  that  she  was 
looking  steadily  at  him,  and  he  knew  that  she  understood 
what  was  passing  in  his  mind.  He  dropped  the  match  on 
to  the  ash-tray  and  bent  a  little  nearer  to  her.  He  would 
take  her  in  his  arms,  he  said  to  himself,  and  hold  her 
tightly  to  him.  .  .  . 

"Won't  you  sit  down,"  she  said,  pointing  to  his  chair. 

He  straightened  himself,  but  did  not  move  away.  His 
eyes  were  still  intent  on  hers,  as  if  he  could  not  avoid  her 
gaze,  and  for  a  while  neither  of  them  spoke  or  moved. 
Then  she  smiled  at  him. 

"You're  a  funny  boy,"  she  said.  "Won't  you  sit 
down!"  and  again  she  pointed  to  the  chair. 

His  answer  was  so  low  that  he  could  hardly  hear  him- 
self speak,  and  at  first  he  thought  she  had  not  heard  him. 
"I'd  better  go,"  he  said. 

"Not  yet,"  she  answered,    "You  needn't  go  yet!" 

"I'd  better.  ..." 

She  put  out  her  hand  and  made  him  sit  down. 

"There's  no  hurry,"  she  said. 

He  leant  back  in  his  chair,  resting  his  elbows  on  the  arms 
of  it  and  folding  his  fingers  under  his  chin. 

"You  look  frightened,"  she  said. 

"I  am,"  he  answered. 

"Of  me?"  He  nodded  his  head,  and  she  laughed. 
"How  absurd!"  she  said.    "I'm  not  a  bit  terrifying.  ..." 

He  was  not  trembling  now.  He  felt  quite  calm,  as  if  he 
had  resigned  himself  to  what  must  be. 

"No,  I  ...  I  know  you're  not,"  he  said,  "only  .  .  ." 

"Only  what?" 

"I  don't  know!" 

She  put  her  cigarette  down  and  turned  slightly  towards 
him. 

"Funny  boy!"  she  said.    "Funny  Irish  boy!" 

He  smiled  foolishly  at  her,  but  did  not  answer.    He  knew 


CHANGING  WINDS  303 

that  if  he  spoke  at  all,  he  would  say  wild  things  that  could 
not  be  withdrawn  or  explained  away. 

' '  Funny  scared  Irish  boy ! ' '  she  said,  and  he  could  see  the 
mockery  in  her  eyes.     "Such  a  frightened  Irish  boy!  ..." 

He  could  hold  out  no  longer.  She  had  put  her  hand  out 
towards  him  .  .  .  why  he  could  not  tell  .  .  .  and  impul- 
sively he  seized  it  and  clasped  it  tightly  in  his.  His  grasp 
must  have  hurt  her,  for  she  cried  a  little  and  tried  to  with- 
draw her  hand,  but  he  would  not  let  go  his  hold  of  it  until, 
kneeling  beside  her,  he  had  put  his  arms  about  her  and 
kissed  her. 

**I  love  you,"  he  said.    **You  know  I  love  you.  ..." 

"Don't!" 

* '  I  loved  you  the  minute  I  set  eyes  on  you,  and  I  wanted 
to  meet  you  again  .  .  .  and  then  I  was  jealous  of  Gilbert 
because  you  took  so  much  notice  of  him  and  so  little  of  me, 
and  ...  I  love  you,  I  love  you!" 

She  thrust  him  from  her.  "You're  hurting  me,"  she 
said,  and  she  panted  as  she  spoke. 

"I  want  to  hurt  you,"  he  answered. 

"But  you  mustn't.  ..." 

He  did  not  let  her  finish  her  sentence.  He  pressed  his 
lips  hard  on  hers  until  his  strength  seemed  to  pass  away 
from  him.  He  felt  in  some  strange  way  that  her  eyes  were 
closed  and  that  she  was  moaning.  .  .  . 

He  put  his  arms  about  her  again,  and  drew  her  head 
gently  on  to  his  breast.  "My  dear,"  he  said  softly,  bend- 
ing over  her  and  kissing  her  hair. 

She  lay  very  still  in  his  arms,  so  still  that  he  thought  she 
had  fallen  asleep.  Her  long  lashes  trembled  a  little,  and 
then  she  opened  her  eyes,  sighing  contentedly  as  she  did 
so.  He  smiled  down  at  her,  and  she  smiled  in  response. 
Then  she  put  her  hand  up  and  stroked  his  cheek  and  rufiSed 
his  hair. 

"Funny  Irish  boy!"  she  said  again. 


304  CHANGING  WINDS 


He  climbed  on  to  a  Tbus  which  bore  him  eastwards.  It 
was  impossible,  in  his  state  of  exaltation,  to  go  home  and  eat 
in  the  company  of  the  others,  Ninian  would  probably  be 
back  from  Southampton,  unbalanced  with  admiration  for 
Tom  Arthurs  and  the  Gigantic,  and  then  Gilbert  would  tell 
him  how  Sir  Geoffrey  Mundane  had  behaved  during  the  re- 
hearsal and  how  exasperating  Mrs.  Michael  Gordon,  the 
leading  lady,  had  been.  "She's  brilliant,  of  course,"  he  had 
said  about  her  once,  "but  if  I  were  her  husband  I'd  beat 
her!"  He  could  not  endure  the  thought  of  spending  the 
evening  in  the  customary  company  of  his  friends.  They 
would  want  to  talk,  they  would  draw  him  into  the  con- 
versation, and  he  neither  wished  to  talk  nor  to  listen.  His 
desire  was  only  to  remember,  to  go  over  again  in  his  mind 
that  long,  passionate  afternoon  with  Cecily.  ...  So  he  had 
telephoned  to  Mrs.  Clutters  telling  her  that  he  would  not 
be  in  to  dinner,  and  then,  climbing  on  to  a  'bus,  had  al- 
lowed himself  to  be  carried  eastwards,  not  knowing  or  car- 
ing whither  he  was  being  carried. 

He  paid  no  heed  to  the  other  passengers  on  the  'bus, 
nor  did  he  interest  himself  in  the  traffic  of  the  streets. 
When  the  conductor  came,  demanding  fares,  he  asked  for 
a  ticket  to  the  terminus,  but  did  not  bother  to  ask  where 
the  terminus  was.  His  mind  was  full  of  golden  hair  and 
warm,  moist  lips  and  soft,  disturbing  perfume  and  the 
touch  of  a  shapely  hand.  Cecily  had  insisted  on  calling 
him  "Paddy"  because  he  was  Irish  and  because  so  many 
Englishmen  are  called  * '  Henry, ' '  and  when  he  had  left  her, 
she  had  offered  her  lips  to  him  and,  when  he  had  kissed 
her,  had  told  him  she  would  see  him  again  soon.  "When 
Gilbert's  play  is  done,"  she  said,  and  added,  "Tell  Gilbert 
I  shall  expect  him  to  come  and  talk  to  me  after  the  first 
act!" 

He  had  been  jealous  when  she  said  that,    "You  don't 


CHANGING  WINDS  305 

really  care  for  me,"  he  had  said.  "You  really  love  Gil- 
bert!" 

"Of  course  I  love  Gilbert,"  she  had  answered,  laughing 
at  him  and  patting  his  cheek,  * '  but  I  love  you,  too.  I  love 
lots  of  people!  ..." 

Then,  ashamed  of  himself,  he  had  left  her.  It  was  cad- 
dish of  him  to  speak  of  Gilbert  to  her,  for  Gilbert  was 
his  friend  and  her  lover.  If  one  were  to  try  and  take  a 
friend's  mistress  from  him,  one  should  at  least  be  silent 
about  it.  But  how  could  he  help  these  outbursts  of  jeal- 
ousy? He  cared  for  Gilbert  far  more  than  he  cared  for 
any  man  .  .  .  but  he  could  not  prevent  himself  from  rag- 
ing at  the  thought  that  Gilbert  had  but  to  hold  out  his 
arms  and  Cecily  would  run  to  be  clasped  in  them.  * '  I  'm  a 
makeshift, ' '  he  said  to  himself.     ' '  That 's  all ! " 

But  even  if  he  were  only  a  makeshift,  that  was  better 
than  being  shut  away  from  her  love  altogether.  "I  dare- 
say," he  thought,  "she's  as  fond  of  me  as  she  is  of  any 
one!"  and  he  wondered  whether  she  really  loved  Gilbert. 
It  was  difficult  for  him  to  believe  that  she  could  yield  so 
easily  to  him  and  love  Gilbert  deeply,  and  he  soothed  his 
conscience  by  telling  himself  that  Cecily  was  one  of  those 
women  who  are  in  love  with  love,  ready  to  accept  kisses 
from  any  ardent  youth  who  offers  them  to  her.  He  re- 
membered his  contribution  to  the  discussion  on  women  and 
the  way  in  which  he  had  insisted  on  infinite  variety  of  ex- 
periences. Cecily  was,  as  a  woman,  what  he  had  wished 
to  be  as  a  man.  We  had  to  recognise  the  differences  of 
nature,  he  had  said,  but  somehow  he  did  not  greatly  care 
to  see  his  principle  put  into  practice  by  Cecily.  There  was 
something  very  fine  and  dashing  and  Byronic  and  adven- 
turous in  a  man  with  a  spacious  spirit,  but  after  all,  women 
were  women,  and  one  did  not  like  to  think  of  adventuring 
women.  He  wanted  to  have  Cecily  to  himself  ...  he  did 
not  wish  to  share  her  with  Gilbert  or  with  Jimphy  or  with 
any  one,  and  it  hardly  seemed  decent  that  Cecily  should 


306  CHANGING  WINDS 

wish  to  spread  her  affections  over  three  men.  **And  there 
may  be  others,  too!"  All  this  talk  about  sex-equality  had 
an  equitable  sound  ...  his  intellect  agreed  that  if  men 
were  to  have  amorous  adventures,  then  women  should  have 
them  too;  if  men  were  to  be  unfaithful  without  reproach, 
then  women  should  be  equally  without  reproach  in  their 
infidelity  .  .  .  but  his  instinct  cried  out  against  it.  He 
wanted  his  woman  to  himself  even  though  he  might  not 
keep  himself  for  her  alone. 

"And  that's  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  sex-ques- 
tion," he  said.  ''We  simply  aren't  willing  to  let  women 
live  on  our  level.  In  theory,  the  man  who  goes  to  a  pros- 
titute is  as  bad  as  she  is,  but  in  practice,  we  don't  believe 
it,  and  women  don't  believe  it  either,  and  nothing  will  ever 
make  us  believe  it.  And  it's  the  same  with  lovers  and  mis- 
tresses. It  simply  doesn  't  seem  decent  to  a  man  who  keeps 
a  mistress  that  his  wife  should  have  a  lover.  You  can't 
help  having  instincts!  ..." 


The  'bus  drove  over  London  Bridge  and  presently  he 
found  himself  in  the  railway  station.  It  was  too  early  yet 
to  eat,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  go  for  a  walk  through 
Southwark.  None  of  them  had  ever  been  in  the  slums. 
They  had  set  their  minds  against  suggestions  that  they 
should  live  in  Walworth  or  Whitechapel  or  Bethnal  Green 
in  order  that  they  might  get  to  know  something  of  the  lives 
of  the  very  poor.  "That's  simply  slush,"  Gilbert  had 
said.  "We  shouldn't  live  like  them.  We'd  have  four 
good  meals  every  day  and  baths  every  morning,  and  we'd 
only  feel  virtuous  and  'smarmy'  and  do-good-to-the-poor-y. 
My  object  is  to  get  rid  of  slums,  not  to  go  and  live  in  the 
damn  things  and  encourage  slum-owners  by  paying  rent 
regularly.  All  those  Settlement  people  .  .  .  really,  they  're 
doing  the  heroic  stunt  for  their  own  ends.  They  '11  go  into 
parliament  and  say  they  have  intimate  knowledge  of  the 


CHANGING  WINDS  SOI 

way  in  which  the  poor  live  because  they  've  lived  with  them 
.  .  .  and  it's  all  my  eye,  that  stuff!" 

The  notion  had  made  a  faint  appeal  to  Henry,  but  he 
had  not  responded  to  it  because  of  the  way  in  which  the 
others  had  sneered  at  it  and  because  he  liked  pleasant  sur- 
roundings. Once,  in  Dublin,  he  had  wandered  out  of  St. 
Stephens's  Green  and  found  himself  in  the  Combe,  and 
the  sights  he  had  witnessed  there  had  sickened  him  so  that 
he  had  hurried  away,  and  always  thereafter  had  been  care- 
ful not  to  enter  side  streets  with  which  he  was  not  fa- 
miliar. Now,  he  felt  that  he  ought  to  see  a  London  slum. 
One  had  to  have  a  point  of  view  about  poor  people,  and 
it  was  difficult  to  have  a  point  of  view  about  people  of 
whom  one  was  almost  totally  ignorant. 

He  walked  slowly  up  the  Borough  High  Street,  uncer- 
tain of  himself  and  of  the  district.  He  would  want  some- 
thing to  eat  presently,  and  if  he  were  to  venture  too  far 
into  the  slums  that  lay  hidden  behind  St.  George's  Church 
and  the  Elephant,  he  might  have  difficulty  in  finding  a 
place  where  he  could  take  a  meal  in  comfort.  He  stood 
for  a  few  moments  outside  the  window  of  a  shop  in  which 
sausages  and  steaks  and  onions  were  being  fried.  There 
was  a  thick,  hot,  steamy  odour  coming  from  the  door  that 
filled  him  with  nausea,  and  he  turned  to  move  away,  but 
as  he  did  so,  he  saw  two  sickly  boys,  half  naked,  standing- 
against  the  window  with  their  mouths  pressed  close  to  the 
glass.  They  were  eyeing  the  cooking  food  so  hungrily  that 
he  felt  pity  for  them,  and  he  touched  one  of  them  on  the 
shoulder  and  asked  him  if  he  would  like  something  to  eat. 
The  boy  looked  at  him,  but  did  not  answer,  and  his  com- 
panion came  shuffling  to  his  side  and  eyed  him  too. 

"Wouldn't  you  like  some  of  that  .  .  .  that  stuff!" 
Henry  said,  pointing  to  a  great  slab  of  thick  pudding, 
padded  with  currants. 

One  of  the  boys  nodded  his  head,  and  Henry  moved 
towards  the  door  of  the  shop,  bidding  them  both  to  follow 
him. 


308  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Give  these  youngsters  some  of  that  pudding!"  he  said 
to  the  man  behind  the  counter:  a  fat,  flaccid  man  with  a 
wet,  steamy  brow  which  he  periodically  wiped  with  a 
grimy  towel. 

**  *Ere!"  said  the  man,  cutting  off  large  pieces  of  the 
pudding  and  passing  it  across  the  counter  to  the  boys  who 
took  it,  without  speaking,  and  began  to  gnaw  at  it  immedi- 
ately. 

"Wod  you  say  for  it,  eih?"  the  man  demanded. 

They  mumbled  unintelligibly,  their  mouths  choked  with 
the  food. 

**Pore  little  kids,  they  don't  know  no  better !  Nah,  then, 
'op  it,  you  two!     That'll  be  fourpence,  sir!" 

Henry  paid  for  the  pudding  and  left  the  malodorous 
shop.  The  children  were  standing  in  the  shadow  outside, 
one  of  them  eating  wolfishly,  while  the  other  held  the  pud- 
ding in  front  of  him,  gaping  at  it.  .  .  . 

"Don't  you  like  it?"  Henry  said,  bending  down  to  him. 

**  'E  can't  eat  it,  guv 'nor!"  the  other  boy  said. 

"Can't  eat  it!" 

"No,  guv 'nor,  'e  can't.     I'll  'ave  to  eat  it  for  'im.  .  .  ." 

"But  why  can't  you  eat?"  Henry  asked,  turning  to 
the  boy  who  still  gaped  helplessly  at  the  pudding. 

The  child  did  not  answer.  He  stared  at  the  pudding, 
and  then  he  stared  at  Henry,  and  as  he  did  so,  the  pudding 
fell  from  his  hands,  and  he  became  sick.  .  .  . 

"  'Ere,  wod  you  chuckin'  it  awy  for?"  the  other  boy 
said,  dropping  quickly  to  the  ground  and  picking  up  the 
pudding. 

"He's  ill,"  Henry  said  helplessly. 

"  *E's  always  ill,"  the  boy  answered,  stuffing  pieces  of 
the  recovered  pudding  into  his  mouth. 

A  policeman  was  standing  at  the  comer,  and  Henry  went 
to  him  and  told  him  of  the  child's  plight. 

"Sick  is  'e?"  the  constable  exclaimed. 

"Yes,"  Henry  answered.     "He  looked  hungry,  poor  lit- 


CHANGING  WINDS  309 

tie  chap,  and  so  I  bought  him  some  of  the  pudding  they 
sell  in  that  shop  ! ' ' 

The  policeman  looked  at  him  for  a  few  moments.  ''Well, 
of  course,  you  meant  it  kindly,  sir !"  he  said,  "but  if  I  was 
you  I  wouldn't  do  that  again.  If  you'll  excuse  me  sayin' 
it,  sir,  it  was  a  damn  silly  thing  to  do ! " 

"Why?" 

"Why!  'Alf  the  kids  about  'ere  is  too  'ungry  to  eat. 
That  kid  ought  to  be  in  the  'ospital  by  rights.  Don 't  never 
give  'em  no  puddin '  or  stuff  like  that,  sir.  Their  stomachs 
can't  stand  it.  Nah,  then,"  he  said  to  the  sick  child,  "you 
'op  'ome,  young  'un.  You  didn't  ought  to  be  'angin'  about 
'ere,  you  know,  upsettin'  the  traffic  an'  my  kin'  a  mess  on 
the  py vement.     Gow  on !     Git  aht  of  it ! " 

The  boys  ran  off,  leaving  Henry  staring  blankly  after 
them.  "  'E'U  be  all  right,  sir!"  said  the  policeman. 
"It's  no  good  tryin'  to  do  nothink  for  'em.  They're  down, 
guv 'nor,  an'  that's  all  about  it.  I  seen  a  lot  of  yooman 
nature  down  about  'ere,  an'  you  can  tyke  it  from  me,  them 
kids  is  down  an'  they'll  stay  down,  an'  that's  all  you  can 
say  about  it.     Good-night,  sir!" 

"Good-night!"  said  Henry. 

He  moved  away,  feeling  sick  and  miserable  and  angry. 

"It's  beastly,"  he  said  to  himself.  "That's  what  it  is. 
Beastly!" 


His  mind  was  occupied  by  violent  thoughts  about  the  two 
children  whom  he  had  fed  with  currant  pudding,  and  he 
did  not  observe  what  he  was  doing  or  where  he  was  going. 
He  was  in  a  wide,  dark  street  where  there  were  tram-lines, 
but  he  could  not  remember  seeing  a  tramcar  pass  by.  He 
was  tired  and  although  he  was  not  hungry,  he  was  conscious 
of  a  missed  meal,  and  he  was  thirsty.  "I'd  better  turn 
back,"  he  said  to  himself,  turning  as  he  did  so.    He  won- 


810  CHANGING  WINDS 

dered  where  he  was,  and  he  resolved  that  he  would  ask  the 
first  policeman  he  met  to  tell  him  in  what  part  of  London 
he  now  was  and  what  was  the  quickest  way  to  get  out  of  it. 

"It  was  silly  of  me  to  come  here  at  all,"  he  murmured, 
and  then  he  turned  quickly  and  stared  across  the  street. 

A  woman  had  screamed  somewhere  near  by  ...  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street,  he  thought  .  .  .  and  as  he  looked, 
he  saw  figures  struggling,  and  then  they  parted  and  one 
of  them,  a  woman,  ran  away  towards  a  lamppost,  holding 
her  hands  before  her  in  an  appealing  fashion,  and  crying, 
"Oh,  don't!  Don't  hit  me!  .  .  ."  The  other  figure  was 
that  of  a  man,  and  as  the  woman  shrank  from  him,  the  man 
advanced  towards  her  with  his  fist  uplifted.  .  .  . 

Henry  could  feel  himself  shrinking  back  into  the  shadow. 

"He's  going  to  hit  her,"  he  was  saying  to  himself,  and 
he  closed  his  eyes,  afraid  lest  he  should  see  the  man's  fist 
smashing  into  the  woman's  face.  He  could  hear  a  foul 
oath  uttered  by  the  man  and  the  woman 's  scream  as  she  re- 
treated still  further  from  him  .  .  .  and  then,  trembling 
with  fright,  he  ran  across  the  street  and  thrust  himself 
between  them.  "Oh,  my  God,  what  am  I  doing?"  he 
moaned  to  himself  as  he  stood  in  the  glare  of  the  yellow 
light  that  fell  from  the  street  lamp.  He  felt  rather  than 
saw  that  the  woman  had  risen  from  the  ground  and  run 
away  the  moment  the  man's  attention  was  distracted  from 
her,  and  a  shudder  of  fear  ran  through  him  as  he  realised 
that  he  was  alone.  He  could  see  the  man's  brutal  face  and 
his  blazing,  drink-inflamed  eyes,  and  in  the  middle  of  his 
fear,  he  thought  how  ugly  the  man's  eyebrows  were  .  .  . 
one  long,  black  line  from  eye  to  eye  across  the  top  of  his 
nose.  The  man,  his  fist  clenched  and  raised,  advanced  to- 
wards him.  "  He 's  going  to  hit  me  now, ' '  Henry  thought. 
"He'll  knock  me  down  and  .  .  .  and  kick  me!  .  .  .  These 
people  always  kick  you!  ..." 

He  stood  still  waiting  for  the  blow,  mesmerised  by  the 
man's  blazing  eyes;  but  the  man,  though  his  fist  was  still 
clenched,  did  not  strike  him.    He  reeled  up  to  him  so 


CHANGING  WINDS  311 

closely  that  Henry  was  sickened  by  the  smell  of  his  drink- 
sodden  breath.  "Fight  for  a  woman,  would  you?"  he 
shouted  at  him.  "Eih?  P'tect  a  woman,  would 
you?  .  .  ." 

Henry  wanted  to  laugh.  The  man  was  repeating  phrases 
from  melodramas!  .  .  . 

''Tyke  a  woman's  part,  eih?  I  know  you,  you  bloody 
toff!  You  .  .  .  you  think  you're  a  bloody  'ero,  eih, 
p'tectin'  a  woman  from  'er  'usband!"  He  pushed  Henry 
aside,  almost  falling  on  the  pavement  as  he  did  so.  "I've 
a  goo '  mind  to  break  your  bloody  neck  for  you,  see,  bloody 
toff,  interferin'  .  .  .  'usband  an'  wife.  See?  Thash  what 
111  do!  .  .  ." 

He  came  again  at  Henry,  but  still  he  did  not  strike.  He 
mumbled  his  melodramatic  phrases,  swaying  in  front  of 
Henry,  and  threatening  to  break  his  neck  and  punch  his 
jaw  and  give  him  a  thick  ear,  but  he  did  no  more  than 
that,  and  while  he  threatened,  a  crowd  gathered  out  of  the 
shadows,  and  a  woman,  with  bare  arms,  touched  Henry's 
arm  and  drew  him  away  from  the  drunken  man.  "You 
'op  it,  mister,"  she  said,  "or  you'll  get  'urt!"  She 
pushed  him  out  of  the  crowd,  slapping  a  lad  in  the  face 
who  had  jostled  him  and  said,  "Gawblimey,  look  at  Percy !" 
and  when  she  had  got  him  away  from  them,  she  told  him 
again  to  'op  it. 

"Thank  you!  .  .  ."  he  began. 

"Don't  you  wyste  no  time,  mister,  but  'op  it  quick,"  she 
interrupted,  giving  him  a  push  forward. 

"But  I  don't  know  where  I  am,"  he  replied. 

"Dunno  w'ere  you  are!  .  .  .  Well,  of  course,  you  look 
like  that!  You're  in  Bermondsey,  mister,  an'  if  you  tyke 
my  advice  you'll  go  'ome  an'  sty  'ome.  People  like  you 
didden  ought  to  be  let  out  alone!  You  go  'ome  to  your 
mother,  sir!  The  first  turnin'  on  the  right '11  bring  you 
to  the  trams.  ..." 

He  did  as  she  told  him,  hurrying  away  from  the  dark 
street  as  quickly  as  he  could.    He  was  trembling.    Every 


Sl«  CHANGING  WINDS 

nerve  in  his  body  seemed  to  be  strained,  and  his  eyes  had 
the  tired  feel  they  always  had  when  he  was  deeply  agi- 
tated. 

"My  God/'  he  said,  "what  an  ass  I  was  to  do  that !" 


Gilbert  and  Roger  were  sitting  together  when  he  got 
home, 

"Hilloa,  Quinny!"  Gilbert  exclaimed  as  he  looked  at 
Henry's  white  face.     "What  have  you  been  up  to?" 

He  told  them  of  his  adventure  in  Bermondsey. 

"You  do  do  some  damn  funny  things,  Quinny!"  said 
Gilbert,  going  to  the  sideboard  and  getting  out  the  whisky. 
"Here,  have  a  drop  of  this  stuff.  You  look  completely 
pipped!" 

"I  don't  think  I  should  make  a  habit  of  knight-errantry, 
if  I  were  you, ' '  said  Roger.     ' '  Not  in  slums  at  all  events ! ' ' 

* '  Has  Ninian  come  back  yet  ? ' '  Henry  asked,  sipping  the 
whisky. 

"He's  gone  to  bed.  The  Gigantic  got  off  all  right,  but 
there  was  trouble  at  the  start.  She  fouled  a  cruiser  or 
something.  Ninian 's  full  of  it.  He'll  tell  you  the  whole 
rigmarole  in  the  morning.  You'd  better  trot  off  to  bed 
when  you've  drunk  that,  and  for  God's  sake,  Quinny,  don't 
try  to  be  heroic  again.  You're  not  cut  out  for  that  sort  of 
jobi  ..." 


THE  EIGHTH  CHAPTER 

1 

Mrs.  Graham  and  Mary  and  Eachel  "Wynne  dined  with 
them  on  the  first  night  of  ' '  The  Magic  Casement. ' '  Rachel, 
fresh  from  a  Care  Committee,  composed  mostly  of  mem- 
bers of  the  Charity  Organisation  Society  and  the  wives 
of  prosperous  tradesmen,  was  inclined  to  tell  the  world 
what  she  thought  of  it,  but  they  diverted  her  mind  from 
tlie  iniquities  of  the  Care  Committee  by  congratulating 
her  on  her  engagement  to  Roger.  She  blushed  and  gave 
her  thanks  in  stammers,  looking  with  bright,  proud  eyes 
at  Roger;  and  when  they  saw  how  human  she  was,  they 
forgot  lier  hard  efficiency  and  her  sociological  angers,  and 
liked  her.  Gilbert  urged  her  to  tell  them  tales  of  the 
C.O.S.  and  the  Care  Committee,  and  rejoiced  loudly  when 
she  described  how  she  had  discomfited  a  large,  granitic 
woman  .  .  .  the  Mayor's  wife  .  .  .  who  had  committed 
a  flagrant  breach  of  the  law  in  her  anxiety  to  pen- 
alise some  unfortunate  children  whose  father  was  an 
agitator.  "If  I  were  poor,"  Rachel  said,  "I'd  hit  a 
C.O.S.  person  on  sight!  I'd  hit  it  simply  because  it  was 
a  C.O.S.  person!  That  would  be  evidence  against  it!" 
She  enjoyed  calling  a  C.O.S.  person,  "it,"  and  Henry  felt 
that  perhaps  some  of  the  difficulty  with  the  Mayor's  wife 
was  due  to  the  pleasure  that  Rachel  took  in  rubbing  her 
up  the  wrong  w^ay.  He  suggested  that  tactful  treat- 
ment. .  .  . 

"You  can't  be  tactful  with  that  kind  of  person,"  she 
asserted  instantly.  "You  can  only  be  angry.  You  see, 
they  love  to  badger  poor  people.  It's  sheer  delight  to  them 
to  ask  impertinent   questions.     There's   a  big  streak  of 

313 


314  CHANGING  WINDS 

Torquemada  in  them.  They'd  have  been  Inquisitors  if 
they'd  been  born  in  Spain  when  there  were  Inquisitors!" 
She  paused  for  a  second  or  two,  and  then  went  on  rapidly. 
**I  never  thought  of  that  before.  "Why,  of  course,  that's 
what  they  are.  They've  been  reincarnated  .  .  .  you  know, 
transmigration  of  souls  .  .  .  and  that  fat  woman,  Mrs. 
Smeale.  ..."  Mrs.  Smeale  was  the  Mayor's  wife  .  .  . 
"was  an  Inquisitor  before  she  was  .  .  .  was  dug  up  again. 
I  can  see  her  beastly  big  face  in  a  cowl,  and  hot  pincers 
in  her  hands,  plucking  poor  Protestants'  flesh  off  their 
bones  .  .  .  and  she's  doing  that  now,  using  all  the  rotten 
rules  and  regulations  as  hot  pincers  to  pluck  the  spirit 
out  of  the  poor!  Of  course,  she  does  it  all  for  the  best! 
So  did  the  Inquisitors!  She  doesn't  want  to  undermine 
the  moral  character  of  the  poor,  and  they  didn't  want  to 
let  the  poor  heretic  imperil  his  soul.  ...  I'd  like  to  in- 
quisit  her!  ..." 

"There  isn't  a  word  'inquisit,'  Kachel!"  said  Roger. 

"Well,  there  ought  to  be,"  she  answered. 

Henry  pictured  her,  in  her  committee  room,  surrounded 
by  hard  women,  opposing  herself  to  them,  fighting  for 
people  who  were  not  of  her  class  against  people  who  were, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that  Rachel  was  very  valiant,  even  if 
she  were  tactless,  much  more  valiant  than  he  could  be. 
Rachel  belonged  to  the  fearless,  ungracious,  blunt  people 
who  are  not  to  be  deterred  from  their  purpose  by  ostracism 
or  abuse,  and  Henry  realised  that  such  courage  as  hers  must 
inevitably  be  accompanied  by  aggressiveness,  a  harsh  in- 
sistence on  one's  point  of  view,  and  worst  of  all,  a  sur- 
render of  social  charm  and  ease  and  the  kindly  regard  of 
one's  friends.  "I  couldn't  do  that,"  he  thought  to  him- 
self. It  was  easy  enough  to  sneer  at  such  people,  to  call 
them  "cranks,"  but  indisputably  they  had  the  heroic  spirit, 
the  will  to  endure  obloquy  for  their  opinions.  "I  sup- 
pose," he  reflected,  "the  reason  why  one  feels  so  angry 
with  such  people  is  partly  that  nine  times  out  of  ten  they  're 
in  the  right,  and  partly  that  ten  times  out  of  ten  they've 


CHANGING  WINDS  315 

got  the  pluck  we  haven't  got!"  And  he  remembered  that 
Witterton,  a  journalist  whom  he  had  met  at  the  office  of 
the  Morning  Record,  had  climbed  on  to  the  plinth  in  Tra- 
falgar Square  during  the  Boer  War  and  made  a  speech 
in  denunciation  of  Chamberlain  and  the  Rand  lords,  and 
had  been  badly  mauled  by  the  mob.  *  *  By  God,  that 's  cour- 
age ! "  he  murmured.  That  was  the  sort  of  person  Rachel 
was.  He  could  see  her  opposing  herself  to  mobs,  but  he 
could  not  see  himself  doing  so.  Probably,  he  thought,  he 
would  be  on  the  fringe  of  the  crowd,  mildly  deprecating 
violence  and  tactlessness.  .  .  . 

He  came  out  of  his  ruminations  to  hear  Mrs.  Graham 
telling  Rachel  how  pleased  she  was  to  hear  that  Roger 
and  she  were  engaged.  "My  dear,"  she  said,  **I'm  very 
glad!"  and  then  she  kissed  Rachel. 

* '  Come  here,  Roger, ' '  she  added,  and  when  he  had  ambled 
awkwardly  up  to  her,  she  took  his  head  in  her  hands  and 
kissed  him  too.  .  .  . 

"I've  a  jolly  good  mind  to  get  engaged  myself,"  said 
Gilbert. 

"Well,  why  don't  you?"  Mrs.  Graham  retorted. 

"I  would,  only  I  keep  on  forgetting  about  it,"  he  an- 
swered.   "Couldn't  you  kiss  me  'Good-luck'  to  my  play?" 

"I  could,"  she  replied,  and  kissed  him. 

Then  they  insisted  that  she  should  kiss  them  all,  and 
she  did  as  they  insisted.  She  was  very  gracious  and  very 
charming  and  her  eyes  were  bright  with  her  pleasure  in 
their  youth  and  spirits  ...  so  bright  that  presently  she 
cried  a  little  .  .  .  and  then  they  all  talked  quickly  and 
kicked  one  another's  shins  under  the  table  in  order  to  en- 
force tactful  behaviour. 


They  sat  in  one  of  the  two  large  boxes  of  the  Pall  Mall 
Theatre.    Gilbert  was  nervous  and  restless,  and  after  the 


316  CHANGING  WINDS 

play  began,  he  retreated  to  the  back  of  the  box  and  sat 
down  in  a  corner. 

"What's  up,  Gilbert?"  Henry  whispered  to  hira.  "Are 
you  ill?" 

"111!"  Gilbert  exclaimed,  looking  up  at  Henry  wuth  a 
whimsical  smile.  "Man,  Quinny,  I'm  dying!  Go  away 
like  a  good  chap  and  let  me  die  in  peace.  Tell  all  my 
friends  that  my  last  words  were.  ..." 

Henry  went  back  to  his  seat  beside  Mary  and  whispered 
to  her  that  Gilbert  was  too  nervous  and  agitated  to  be 
sociable  .  .  .  "some  sort  of  stage  fright!  ..."  and  they 
pretended  not  to  notice  that  he  was  huddled  in  the  darkest 
corner  of  the  box.  "Thank  goodness,"  Henry  said  to  the 
others,  "a  novelist  doesn't  get  a  storm  of  nerves  on  the 
day  of  publication ! ' '  Leaning  over  the  edge  of  the  box, 
he  could  see  Lady  Cecily  sitting  in  the  stalls,  with  Jimphy 
by  her  side  .  .  .  and  for  a  while  he  forgot  the  play  and 
Mary  and  Gilbert's  agitation.  She  was  sitting  forward, 
looking  intently  at  the  stage,  and  as  he  watched  her,  she 
laughed  and  turned  to  Jimphy  as  if  she  would  share  her 
pleasure  with  him,  but  Jimphy,  lying  back  in  his  stall,  was 
fiddling  with  his  programme,  utterly  uninterested.  She 
glanced  up  at  the  box,  her  eyes  meeting  his,  and  smiled  at 
him. 

"Who  is  it?"  said  Mary,  leaning  towards  him. 

"Oh  .  .  .  Lady  Cecily  Jayne!"  he  answered,  discom- 
posed by  her  question. 

"She's  very  beautiful,  isn't  she?" 

"Yes." 

They  turned  again  to  the  stage  and  were  silent  until  the 
end  of  the  first  act.  There  was  a  burst  of  laughter,  and 
then  the  curtain  descended,  to  rise  again  in  quick  response 
to  the  applause. 

"Cheering  a  chap  at  his  funeral!"  said  Gilbert,  groaning 
with  delight  as  he  listened  to  the  shouts  and  handclaps. 

They  turned  to  him  and  offered  their  congratulations. 


CHANGING  WINDS  317 

' '  Five  curtain-calls, ' '  said  Roger.     ' '  Very  satisfactory ! ' ' 

"It's  splendid,  Gilbert,"  Mrs.  Graham  exclaimed.  "I'm 
sure  it'll  be  a  great  success!" 

"Oh,  dear,  O  Lord,  I  wish  it  were  over!"  Gilbert  re- 
plied. 

"Let's  fill  him  with  whisky,"  said  Ninian,  rising  and 
taking  hold  of  Gilbert's  arm,  and  he  and  Henry  took  him 
and  led  him  to  the  bar  where  they  met  Jimphy,  looking  like 
a  lost  rabbit. 

"Hilloa,  Jimphy!"  they  exclaimed,  and  he  turned  glee- 
fully to  welcome  them.  Here  at  all  events  was  something 
he  could  comprehend.  He  congratulated  Gilbert.  "Jolly 
good,  old  chap !  Have  a  drink, ' '  he  said,  and  insisted  that 
they  should  join  him  at  the  bar.  "Of  course,"  he  added 
privately  to  Henry,  "this  sort  of  stuff  isn't  really  in  my 
line  .  .  .  jolly  good  and  all  that,  of  course  .  .  .  but  still 
it's  not  in  my  line.  All  the  same,  a  chap  has  to  congratu- 
late a  chap.  Oh,  Cecily  wants  you  to  go  and  talk  to  her. 
You  know  where  she  is,  don 't  you  ? ' ' 

He  turned  to  listen  to  Ninian  who  was  describing  the 
accident  which  had  happened  when  the  Gigantic  started  on 
her  first  trip  to  America.  "She  jolly  near  sank  a  cruiser," 
he  was  saying  as  Henry  moved  away  from  the  bar.  ' '  That 
was  the  second  accident.  The  first  time,  she  broke  from 
her  moorings.  ..." 

Hq  pushed  his  way  through  the  crowd  of  drinking  and 
gossiping  men,  and  entered  the  stalls.  Lady  Cecily  saw 
him  coming,  and  she  beckoned  to  him. 

"Who  is  that  nice  girl  in  the  box?"  she  asked,  as  he 
sat  down  in  Jimphy 's  seat.    "She  sat  beside  you.  ..." 

"Oh,  Ninian 's  sister,"  he  replied.     "Mary  Graham." 

"She's  very  pretty,  isn't  she?" 

"Yes.  .  .  ." 

He  would  have  said  more,  but  it  suddenly  struck  him  as 
comical  that  Lady  Cecily  should  speak  of  Mary  almost  in 
the  words  that  Mary  had  used  when  she  spoke  of  Lady 


818  CHANGING  WINDS 

Cecily.  He  looked  up  at  the  box  and  saw  that  ISIary  was 
talking  to  her  mother,  and  something  in  her  attitude  sent 
a  pang  through  his  heart. 

"I  c?o  love  Mary."  he  said  to  himself,  "but  somehow 
.  .  .  somehow  I  love  Cecily  too!" 

Lady  Cecily  was  speaking  to  him  and  he  turned  to 
listen. 

"I  want  you  to  introduce  me  to  Ninian's  sister,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  reluctantly,  though  he  could  not 
have  said  why  he  was  reluctant  to  introduce  her  to  Mary. 

"After  the  next  act,"  she  went  on,  and  he  nodded  his 
head. 

Then  Jimphy  returned,  and  Henry  got  up  and  left  her, 
and  hurried  back  to  the  box.  The  second  act  had  begun 
when  he  reached  it,  and  he  tiptoed  to  his  seat  and  sat 
down  in  silence.  Mary  looked  round  at  him,  smiling,  and 
then  looked  back  at  the  stage,  and  again  he  felt  that  odd 
reluctance  to  bring  Lady  Cecily  and  her  together. 


At  the  end  of  the  second  act,  he  turned  to  Mary  and 
said,  "Lady  Cecily  wants  to  be  introduced  to  you.  I  said 
I'd  bring  her  here  after  this  act!" 

"Do,"  Mary  answered. 

As  he  walked  towards  the  door  of  the  box,  he  remembered 
Gilbert  and  he  bent  towards  him  and  said  quietly,  "Oh, 
Gilbert,  I'm  going  to  fetch  Lady  Cecily.  She  wants  to 
talk  to  Mary!  ..." 

"Righto!"  Gilbert  replied,  without  looking  up. 

Henry  hesitated.  "You  .  .  .  you  don't  mind,  do  you?" 
he  said,  and  then  wished  that  he  had  remained  silent. 

"Mind!"    Gilbert  looked  up.     "Why  should  I  mind?" 

* '  I  thought  perhaps  .  .  .  but  of  course  if  you  don 't  mind, 
that's  all  right!" 

He  hurried  out  of  the  box,  feeling  that  he  had  in- 


CHANGING  WINDS  319 

truded  into  private  places.  He  had  intended  to  be  con- 
siderate and  had  achieved  only  the  appearance  of  prying. 
"That's  like  me!"  he  thought,  as  he  descended  the  stairs 
that  led  to  the  stalls.  *'I  wonder  why  it  is  that  I'm  full 
of  sympathy  and  understanding  and  tact  in  my  books,  and 
such  a  clumsy  fool  in  life ! ' ' 

He  entered  the  stalls,  and  as  he  did  so,  Lady  Cecily  rose 
to  join  him,  Jimphy  had  already  gone  to  the  bar.  He 
held  the  curtain  for  her  and  she  passed  through.  "Isn't 
it  clever?"  she  said,  speaking  of  the  play,  and  he  nodded 
his  head.  The  passage  leading  up  from  the  stalls  was 
full  of  chattering  people,  but  when  they  reached  the  nar- 
row corridor  which  led  to  the  box,  there  was  no  one 
about.  .  .  , 

' '  Cecily ! "  he  said  in  a  low  voice. 

"Yes,  Paddy!"  she  answered,  looking  back  over  her 
shoulder. 

He  put  his  hands  on  her  shoulders  and  turned  her  to- 
wards him. 

"Some  one  will  see  you,"  she  said. 

"No,  they  won't,"  he  replied,  "and  I  don't  care.  ..." 

He  kissed  her  ardently.  ' '  My  dear ! "  he  murmured  with 
his  lips  on  hers. 

She  pushed  him  from  her.    "You  are  a  fool,"  she  said. 

"I  couldn't  help  it!" 

Their  voices  were  low  lest  the  people  in  the  box  should 
hear  them. 

"You  must  never  do  that  again,"  she  said.  "I'd  never 
have  forgiven  you  if  any  one  had  seen  us!" 

"Whaf  are  you  afraid  of,  Cecily?"  he  asked. 

She  made  a  gesture  of  despair.  "Haven't  you  any 
sense?"  she  said. 

She  turned  to  go  towards  the  box  again,  but  he  caught 
hold  of  her  hand  and  held  her. 

"Cecily,"  he  whispered,  "you  know  I  love  you,  don't 
you?" 


320  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  answered  impatiently,  snatching  her 
hand  from  his,  "but  you  needn't  tell  everybody  about  it!" 

"And  you  love  me,  too.     Don't  you?" 

"Let's  go  and  join  the  others!  ..." 

He  held  her  again.  "No,  Cecily,"  he  said,  "you  must 
listen  to  me!" 

"Well,  what  is  it?" 

"Cecily!"  He  was  breathing  hard,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  could  only  speak  by  forcing  words  out  of  him- 
self.   "Cecily  .  .  .  come  with  me!  .  .  ." 

"That's  what  I  want  to  do,  but  you  keep  me  hanging 
about  here.     If  any  one  were  to  see  us!  .  .  ." 

*  *  I  don 't  mean  that, ' '  he  interrupted.  ' '  You  know  quite 
well  what  I  mean!  ..." 

' '  What  do  you  mean  ?    I  don 't  know !  .  .  . " 

He  went  closer  to  her,  trying  to  waken  her  passion  by 
the  strength  of  his.  "I  want  you  to  leave  Jimphy  and 
come  away  with  me,"  he  said. 

"Leave  Jimphy!" 

"Yes.  You're  not  happy  .  .  .  you're  not  suited  to  each 
other.    Come  with  me ! " 

"Like  this?"  she  said,  holding  out  her  hands  and  mock- 
ing him. 

"That  doesn't  matter,"  he  urged.  "We'll  go  some- 
where. ..." 

"Fly  to  Ireland,  I  suppose,  in  evening  dress!  Poor 
Paddy,  you're  so  Irish,  aren't  you?  Please  don't  be  an 
idiot!" 

She  went  on  towards  the  door  of  the  box,  and  he  fol- 
lowed after  her.     ' '  Cecily ! "  he  said. 

"Not  to-night,"  she  answered.  "I  want  to  be  intro- 
duced to  that  nice  girl,  Mary  Graham,  and  I  really  must 
congratulate  Gilbert  ...  I  suppose  he's  here  ...  it's 
such  a  clever  play ! ' ' 

She  opened  the  door  of  the  box  and  went  in,  and,  hesi- 
tating for  a  moment,  he  went  after  her. 


CHANGING  WINDS  321 


She  stayed  in  the  box,  sitting  between  Mrs.  Graham  and 
Mary,  until  the  end  of  the  play.  The  curtain  had  gone 
down  to  applause  and  laughter  and  had  been  raised  again 
and  a  third  and  fourth  time,  and  then  the  audience  had 
demanded  that  the  author  should  appear.  Somewhere  in 
the  gallery,  they  could  hear  the  faint  groan  of  the  man 
who  attends  all  first  nights  and  groans  on  principle.  "I'd 
like  to  punch  that  chap's  jaw!"  Ninian  muttered,  glanc- 
ing up  at  the  gallery  indignantly.  There  was  more  ap- 
plause and  a  louder  and  more  insistent  shout  of  ' '  Author ! 
Author!"  and  the  curtain  went  up,  and  Gilbert,  very 
nervous  and  very  pale,  came  on  to  the  stage  and  bowed. 
Then,  after  another  curtain  call,  the  lights  were  lowered 
and  the  audience  began  to  disperse. 

There  was  to  be  a  supper  party  at  the  Carlton,  because 
the  Carlton  was  nearer  to  the  Pall  Mall  than  the  Savoy, 
and  Sir  Geoffrey  Mundane  and  Mrs.  Michael  Gordon  had 
accepted  Gilbert's  invitation  to  join  them.  "It'll  cost 
a  hell  of  a  lot, ' '  Gilbert  said  to  Henry,  ' '  but  what 's  money 
for?  When  I  die,  they'll  put  on  my  tombstone,  'He  was 
horn  in  debt,  he  lived  in  debt,  he  died  in  debt,  and  he 
didn't  care  a  damn.  So  be  it!'  He  extended  his  invita- 
tion to  Jimphy  and  Lady  Cecily. 

"You  didn't  come  to  Jimphy 's  birthday  party,"  she 
objected. 

"Didn't  I?"  he  replied.  "Well,  both  of  you  come  to 
my  party  .  .  .  that'll  make  up  for  it!" 

Gilbert  did  not  appear  to  be  affected  by  Cecily's  pres- 
ence. He  had  greeted  her  naturally,  behaving  to  her  in 
as  friendly  a  way  as  he  would  have  behaved  if  she  had 
been  JMrs.  Graham.  Henry,  remembering  the  scene  on 
the  Embankment,  had  difficulty  in  understanding  Gilbert's 
easy  manner.  Had  he  been  in  Gilbert 's  place,  he  knew  that 
he  would  have  been  awkward,  constrained,  tongue-tied. 
Undoubtedly,  Gilbert  had  savoir  faire.     So,  too,  had  Cecily. 


32^  CHANGING  WINDS 

Her  look  of  irritation  with  Henry  had  disappeared  as  she 
entered  the  box.  He,  following  after  her,  had  been  nervous 
and  self-conscious,  feeling  that  the  flushed  look  on  his  face 
must  betray  him  to  his  friends;  but  Cecily  had  none  of 
these  awkwardnesses.  She  behaved  as  easily  as  if  the 
scene  with  Henry  had  not  taken  place.  "You'd  think  she 
hadn't  any  feelings,"  he  murmured  to  himself,  and  as  he 
did  so,  it  seemed  to  him  that  in  that  moment  he  knew 
Cecily,  knew  her  once  and  for  all.  She  had  no  feelings, 
no  particular  feelings  for  any  one,  not  even  for  Gilbert. 
She  was  a  beautiful  animal,  eager  for  emotional  diver- 
sions, but  indifferent  to  the  creature  that  pleased  her  after 
it  had  pleased  her.  If  Henry  were  to  quit  her  now  and 
never  return  to  her,  she  might  some  day  say,  "I  wonder 
where  poor  Paddy  is ! "  and  turn  carelessly  to  a  new  lover ; 
but  that  would  be  all.  Gilbert  had  piqued  her,  perhaps, 
but  he  had  done  no  more  than  that,  though  probably  it 
was  more  than  Henry  could  ever  hope  to  do,  and  she  had 
yawned  a  little  with  the  tedium  of  waiting  for  him,  and 
then  had  decided  to  yawn  no  more.  .  .  . 

He  fell  among  platitudes.  **Like  a  butterfly,"  he  said 
to  himself.    "Just  like  a  damned  butterfly!" 

Well,  he  thought,  mentally  cooler  because  of  his  revela- 
tion, that  is  an  attitude  towards  life  that  has  many  ad- 
vantages. One  might  call  Cecily  a  stoical  amorist,  an  erotic 
philosopher.  "Love  where  you  can,  and  don't  bother 
where  you  can't!"  might  serve  her  for  a  motto.  "And, 
really,  that's  rather  a  good  way  of  getting  through  these 
plaguey  emotions  of  ours!"  he  told  himself.  "Only,"  he 
went  on,  "you  can't  walk  in  that  way  just  because  you 
think  it's  a  good  one!" 

He  sat  between  Lady  Cecily  and  Mary  at  supper,  but  he 
did  not  talk  a  great  deal  to  either  of  them,  for  Mary  was 
chattering  excitedly  to  Sir  Geoffrey  Mundane,  and  Cecily 
was  persuading  Ninian  that  engineering  had  always  been 
the  passion  of  her  life.  "I  quite  agree,"  she  was  saying, 
"a  Channel  Tunnel  would  be  very  useful  and  .  .  .  and  so 


CHANGING  WINDS  323 

convenient,  too.  I've  often  said  that  to  Jimphy,  but  dear 
Jimphy  doesn't  pretend  to  understand  these  things!" 
She  had  turned  to  him  once  and,  in  a  whisper,  had  said, 
"Which  of  you  is  in  love  with  Mary?"  but  he  had  pre- 
tended to  be  wooden  and  hard  of  understanding. 

"My  dear  Paddy,"  she  said,  raising  her  eyebrows,  "I 
believe'  you're  sulking  .  .  .  just  because  I  wouldn't  run 
away  with  you.    You  're  as  bad  as  Gilbert ! ' ' 

"You're  perfectly  brutal,"  he  said  under  his  breath. 

'  *  Aren  't  you  exaggerating  ? ' '  she  replied.  * '  And  if  I  had 
gone  off  with  you,  we'd  have  missed  this  nice  supper. 
Do  be  sociable,  there's  a  dear  Paddy,  and  perhaps  I'll  run 
away  with  you  next  Tuesday ! ' ' 

There  was  a  babble  of  conversation  about  them,  and 
much  laughter,  for  Gilbert,  reacting  from  his  fright,  was 
full  of  bright  talk,  and  Sir  Geoffrey,  reminiscent,  capped 
it  with  entertaining  tales  of  dramatists  and  stage  people. 
It  was  easy  for  Cecily  and  Henry  to  carry  on  their 
conversation  in  quiet  tones  without  fear  of  being  over- 
heard. 

*  *  You  treat  me  like  a  boy, ' '  he  said  reproachfully. 

"You  are  a  boy,  Paddy  dear,  and  a  very  nice  boy!" 

"I  suppose,"  he  retorted,  "it's  impossible  for  you  to 
understand  that  I  love  you.  ..." 

"Indeed,  it  isn't,"  she  interrupted.  "I  understand 
that  quite  easily.  What  I  can't  understand  is  why  you 
wish  to  spoil  everything  by  silly  proposals  to  ...  to 
elope!  ..." 

"But  I  love  you,"  he  insisted.  "Isn't  that  enough  to 
make  you  understand?" 

She  shook  her  head,  and  turned  again  to  Ninian. 

"You  see,"  Ninian  said,  "you  bore  through  this  big  bed 
of  chalk  from  both  sides.  ..." 

"But  how  do  you  know  the  two  ends  will  meet?"  she 
asked. 

' '  Oh,  engineers  manage  that  sort  of  thing  easily, ' '  Ninian 
answered.     "Think  of  the  Simplon  Tunnel!  ..." 


324.  CHANGING  WINDS 

* '  Yes  ? ' '  she  said,  to  indicate  that  she  was  thinking  of  it 

"Well,  that  met,  didn't  it?" 

* '  Did  it  ? "  she  replied.  *  *  Oh,  but  of  course  it  must  have 
met.    I've  been  through  it!  .  .  ." 

"There  was  hardly  an  inch  of  divergence  between  the 
two  ends,"  he  went  on.  .  .  . 

"Hell's  flames!"  Henry  said  to  himself. 


"I  must  see  you,"  he  said  to  her  when  the  pad;y  had 
broken  up  and  she  was  going  home.  "I  must  see  you 
alone!" 

"  I  do  hope  you  're  not  going  to  be  a  nuisance,  Paddy ! ' ' 
she  replied. 

He  put  her  cloak  about  her  shoulders.  "Will  you  meet 
me  at  the  suspension  bridge  over  the  lake  in  St.  James's 
Park  to-morrow  at  eleven?  ..." 

"That's  awfully  early,  Paddy,  and  St.  James's  Park  is 
such  a  long  way  from  everywhere.  Couldn't  you  come  to 
lunch?  Jimphy'll  be  glad  to  see  you.  He  seems  to  like 
you  for  some  reason!" 

"I  want  to  talk  to  you  alone,  and  we're  not  likely  to 
be  disturbed  in  St.  James's  Park.  You  must  come,  Ce- 
cily!" 

"Oh,  all  right,"  she  answered.  "But  I  shan't  be  there 
before  twelve.    You  can  take  me  to  lunch  somewhere.  ..." 

"Very  well,"  he  said.  "I'll  be  at  the  bridge  at  twelve, 
and  I'll  wait  for  you  .  .  .  only,  come  as  soon  as  you  can, 
Cecily!" 

"I  can't  think  why  you  want  to  behave  like  this,  Paddy. 
It's  so  melodramatic.    Gilbert  was  just  the  same!  ..." 

He  felt  that  he  could  hit  her  when  she  said  that,  and  he 
turned  away  from  her  so  quickly  that  her  cloak  slipped 
from  her  shoulders. 

"Oh,  Paddy!"  she  exclaimed. 


CHANGING  WINDS  S25 

**I  beg  your  pardon!"  he  answered,  turning  again  and 
picking  the  cloak  from  the  ground. 

"You're  so  .  .  .  so  selfish, "  she  said.  "You  want  every- 
thing to  be  just  as  you  like  it.  You're  just  like  Gilbert 
.  .  .  where  is  Gilbert?  ...  I  must  say  good-night  to  him 
.  .  .  and  that  nice  girl,  Mary.  I  think  it's  a  very  clever 
play,  and  she's  such  a  nice  girl,  too.  Oh,  Gilbert,  there  you 
are!  Good-night!  I've  enjoyed  everything  so  much  .  .  . 
a  nice  play  and  a  nice  supper.  Good-night,  and  do  come 
and  see  me  soon,  won't  you.  Why  not  come  to-morrow 
with  Paddy?  ..." 

"Paddy?"  said  Gilbert. 

"Yes,  Henry  Quinn.  I  call  him  Paddy.  It  seems  nat- 
ural to  call  him  Paddy.  He's  so  Irish.  Do  come  with  him 
to-morrow,  and  bring  all  your  press  cuttings  with  you 
and  read  them  to  me.    Paddy  wants  to  talk  to  me.  ..." 

Henry  walked  away  from  them.  What  sort  of  woman 
was  this  ?  he  asked  'himself.  Was  she  totally  insensitive  ? 
Was  it  impossible  for  her  to  realise  that  she  was  hurting 
him?  .  .  . 

' '  Good-night,  Quinny ! ' ' 

He  turned  quickly  to  take  Mary's  hand. 

"We're  going  back  to  Devonshire  the  day  after  to- 
morrow," she  said, 

"Are  you?"  he  murmured  vaguely. 

"Yes.    Good-night,  Quinny!" 

"Aren't  you  tired?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  answered.  "I've  enjoyed  myself  awfully 
much.  Here 's  Ninian !  He 's  taking  us  back  to  our  hotel. 
Good-night,  Quinny!" 

He  hesitated  for  a  moment  or  two.  He  wanted  to  sug- 
gest that  he  should  go  with  her  instead  of  Ninian,  bul 
before  he  could  speak  he  saw  Cecily  moving  down  the  rooni 
towards  the  street. 

"Good-night,  Mary!"  was  all  he  said. 


326  CHANGING  WINDS 


Roger  had  taken  Rachel  home,  and  so,  when  Ninian  had 
gone  off  with  his  mother  and  Mary,  there  were  only  Henry 
and  Gilbert  left. 

"Let's  go  home,  Quinny,"  Gilbert  said.  **I'd  like  to 
walk  if  you  don't  mind!" 

"Very  well,"  Henry  replied. 

They  left  the  hotel  and  strolled  across  the  street  towards 
the  National  Gallery. 

"I  wish  it  were  the  morning,"  Gilbert  said.  "I  want 
to  see  the  newspapers!" 

"It  doesn't  greatly  matter  what  they  say,  does  it?" 
Henry  answered.  "The  play's  a  success.  The  audience 
liked  it." 

"I  want  to  read  the  notices  all  the  same.  Of  course, 
I  want  to  read  them.  I  shall  spend  the  whole  of  to-morrow 
reading  and  re-reading  them.    Just  vanity!" 

They  walked  past  the  Gallery,  and  made  their  way 
through  the  complicated  streets  that  lie  behind  the  Strand, 
about  Covent  Garden,  towards  Bloomsbury.  They  did 
not  speak  for  some  time,  for  they  were  tired  and  their 
minds  were  too  full  of  other  things.  Once  indeed,  Gilbert 
began  to  speak  ...  "I  think  I  could  improve  the  second 
act  a  little  ..."  but  he  did  not  finish  his  sentence,  and 
Henry  did  not  ask  him  to  do  so.  It  was  not  until  they 
were  nearly  at  their  home  that  Henry  spoke  to  Gilbert 
about  Cecily. 

"Are  you  going  to  Lady  Cecily's  to-morrow?"  he  said. 

"Eh?"  Gilbert  exclaimed,  starting  out  of  his  dreams. 
' '  Oh,  no,  I  think  not !    Why  ? ' ' 

*  *  I  only  wondered.     She  asked  you,  you  know ! ' ' 

They  walked  on  in  silence  until  they  reached  the  door 
of  their  house. 

"I  say,  Quinny,"  said  Gilbert,  while  Henry  opened  the 
door,  "you  seem  to  be  very  friendly  with  Cecily!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  32T 

Henry  fumbled  with  the  key  and  muttered,  ''Damn  this 
door,  it  won 't  open ! ' ' 

"Let  me  try!  .  .  ." 

"It's  all  right  now.  I've  done  it!  What  were  you  say  ■ 
ing,  Gilbert?" 

They  entered  the  house,  shutting  the  door  behind  them, 
and  stood  for  a  while  in  the  hall,  removing  their  hats  and 
coats. 

"Oh,  nothing,"  Gilbert  replied.  "I  was  only  saying 
you  seemed  very  friendly  with  Cecily ! ' ' 

"Well,  yes,  I  suppose  I  am,  but  not  more  than  most 
people.  Are  you  going  to  bed  now  or  will  you  wait  up 
for  Ninian  and  Roger?" 

"I  shan't  sleep  if  I  go  to  bed  ...  I'm  too  excited.  I 
shall  read  for  a  while  in  my  room  .  .  .  unless  you'd  like 
to  jaw  a  bit!" 

Henry  shook  his  head.  "No,"  he  said,  "I'm  too  tired 
to  jaw  to-night.  See  you  in  the  morning.  Good-night, 
Gilbert!" 

"Good-night,  Quinny!" 

Henry  went  to  his  bedroom,  leaving  Gilbert  in  the  hall, 
and  began  to  undress.  His  mind  was  full  of  a  flat  rage 
against  Cecily.  She  had  consented  to  meet  him  in  St. 
James's  Park,  and  then,  almost  as  she  had  made  her 
promise,  she  had  turned  to  Gilbert  and  had  invited  him 
to  call  on  her,  in  his  company,  at  the  time  she  had  appointed 
for  his  private  meeting  with  her.  He  did  not  wish  to  see 
her  again.  "She's  fooling  me,"  he  said,  throwing  his  coat 
on  to  a  chair  so  that  it  fell  on  to  the  ground  where  he  let 
it  lie.  "I've  not  done  a  stroke  of  work  for  days  on  her 
account,  and  she  cares  no  more  for  me  than  she  does  for 
.  .  .  for  anybody.  I  won't  go  and  meet  her  to-morrow, 
damn  her!  I'll  send  a  messenger  to  say  I  can't  come,  and 
then  I'll  drop  her.  It  isn't  worth  while  going  through 
this  .  .  .  this  agony  for  a  woman  who  doesn't  care  a  curse 
for  you!" 


328  CHANGING  WINDS 

''I'm  not  going  to  be  treated  like  this,"  he  went  on  to 
himself  while  he  brushed  his  teeth.  "I'm  not  going  to 
hang  about  her  and  let  her  treat  me  as  she  pleases.  She 
can  get  somebody  else,  some  one  who  is  more  complacent 
than  I  am,  and  doesn't  feel  things.  I  hope  she  goes  to 
the  Park  and  waits  for  me.  Perhaps  that'll  teach  her  to 
understand  what  a  man  feels  like.  ..." 

But  of  course  she  would  not  go  to  the  Park  and  wait  for 
him.  He  would  send  an  express  messenger  with  a  note 
to  tell  her  that  he  was  unable  to  keep  the  appointment. 

"I'll  write  it  now,"  he  said  to  himself  and  he  stopped 
in  the  middle  of  washing  his  face  and  hands  to  find  note- 
paper.  "Damn,  ray  hands  are  wet,"  he  said  aloud,  and 
picked  up  a  towel. 

"Dear  Lady  Cecily,'*  he  wrote,  when  he  was  dry,  using 
the  formal  address  because  he  wished  to  let  her  know  that 
he  was  ill  friends  with  her,  "/  am  sorry  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  meet  you  to-day  as  we  arranged  last  night."  He  won- 
dered what  excuse  he  should  make  for  breaking  off  the 
appointment,  and  then  decided  that  he  would  not  make  any. 
"I  won't  add  anything  else,"  he  said,  and  he  signed  him- 
self, ''Yours  sincerely,  Henry  Quinn."  "She'll  know  that 
I'm  sick  of  this  .  .  .  messing  about.  I  don't  see  why  I 
should  explain  myself  to  her!" 

He  sealed  the  envelope  and  put  the  letter  aside,  and 
sat  for  a  while  drumming  on  his  table  with  the  pen. 

"Mary's  worth  a  dozen  of  her,"  he  said  aloud,  getting 
up  and  going  to  bed. 


THE  NINTH  CHAPTER 


They  all  rose  early  the  next  day.  Ninian  had  been  out  of 
the  house  before  any  of  them  had  reached  the  breakfast 
room,  and  when  he  returned,  his  arms  were  full  of  news- 
papers. 

"What's  Walkley  say?"  said  Gilbert.  ''That's  all  I 
want  to  know!" 

They  opened  the  Times,  and  then,  when  they  had  read 
the  criticism  of  "The  Magic  Casement,"  they  murmured, 
"Charming!  Splendid!  Oh,  ripping!"  while  Gilbert,  sit- 
ting back  in  his  chair,  smiled  beatifically  and  said,  "Read 
it  again,  coves.    Read  it  aloud  and  slowly!" 

While  they  were  reading  the  notices,  Henry  went  off  to 
a  post  office,  and  sent  his  letter  to  Lady  Cecily  by  express 
messenger.  "That's  settled,"  he  said,  as  he  returned 
home,  for  he  had  been  afraid  that  he  might  change  his 
mind.  As  he  was  shaving  that  morning,  he  had  faltered 
in  his  resolution.  "  I  'd  better  go, ' '  he  had  said  to  himself, 
and  then  had  added  weakly,  *  *  No,  I  'm  damned  if  I  will ! ' ' 
Well,  it  was  settled  now.  The  letter  was  on  its  way  to  her. 
She  would  probably  be  angry  with  him,  but  not  as  angry 
as  he  was  with  her,  and  perhaps  they  would  not  meet  again 
for  a  long  while.  So  much  the  better.  Now  he  could  get 
on  with  his  book  in  peace.  Gilbert  was  right.  Women  do 
upset  things.  Well,  this  particular  woman  would  not  upset 
him  again.  .  .  . 

They  had  read  all  the  notices  when  Henry  returned,  and 
were  now  at  breakfast.  Roger  was  relating  the  latest  legal 
jest  about  Mr.  Justice  Kirkcubbin,  a  poor  old  man  who  per- 

329 


330  CHANGING  WINDS 

sisted  in  clinging  to  the  Bench  in  spite  of  the  broadest 
hints  from  the  Law  Journal,  and  Ninian  was  making  mys- 
terious movements  with  his  hands. 

"What's  the  matter,  Ninian?"  Henry  asked,  as  he  sat 
down  at  the  table. 

Ninian,  while  searching  for  the  notices  of  Gilbert's  play, 
had  seen  a  sentence  in  a  serial  story  in  one  of  the  news- 
papers. .  .  .  ''Her  hands  fluttered  helplessly  over  his 
breast"  .  .  .  and  he  was  trying  to  discover  exactly  what 
the  lady  had  done  with  her  hands.  "She  seems  to  have 
just  flopped  them  about,"  he  said,  and  he  turned  to  Gilbert. 
"Look  here,  Gilbert,"  he  said,  "you  try  it.  I'll  clasp  you 
in  my  arms  as  the  hero  clasped  this  female,  and  you'll  let 
your  hands  flutter  helplessly  over  my  breast ! ' ' 

"I'll  let  my  fist  flutter  helplessly  over  your  jaw,  young 
Ninian!  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  believe  she  let  her  hands  do  anything  of  the 
sort,"  Ninian  went  on.  "She  couldn't  have  done  it.  An 
engineer  couldn't  do  it,  and  I  don't  believe  a  female  can 
do  what  an  engineer  can 't  do ! " 

'  *  I  suppose, ' '  he  added,  getting  up  from  the  table,  *  *  Tom 
Arthurs  is  half  way  across  now.  I  wish  I  could  have  gone 
with  him.    What  a  holiday!" 

"Talking  of  holidays,"  Gilbert  said,  "I'm  going  to  take 
one,  and  as  you  don't  seem  in  a  fit  state  to  do  any  work, 
Quinny,  you'd  better  take  one  too,  and  come  with  me!" 

"Where  are  you  going?"  Roger  asked.    "Anglesey?" 

"No.  I  thought  of  going  there,  but  I've  changed  my 
mind.    I  shall  go  to  Ireland  with  Quinny." 

' '  Ireland ! ' '  Henry  exclaimed,  looking  across  at  Gilbert. 

"Yes.  Dublin.  We  can  go  to-night.  I've  never  been 
there,  and  I'd  like  to  know  what  these  chaps.  Marsh  and 
Galway,  are  up  to.  That  whatdoyoucallit  movement  you 
were  telling  me  about?  .  .  .  you  know,  the  thing  that 
means  *a  stitch  in  time  saves  nine'  or  something  of  the 
sort!" 

"Oh,  the  Sinn  Fein  movement!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  331 

**Yes.  That's  the  thing.  The  Improved  Tories  ought 
to  know  about  that.  ..." 

"That  reminds  me,"  said  Roger,  **of  an  idea  I  had  in 
the  middle  of  the  night  about  the  Improved  Tories.  We 
ought  to  publish  our  views  on  problems.  The  Fabians  do 
that  kind  of  thing  rather  well.  We  ought  to  imitate  them. 
We  ought  to  study  some  subject  hard,  argue  all  round  it, 
and  then  tell  the  world  just  how  we  think  it  ought  to  be 
solved.  I  thought  we  might  begin  on  the  problem  of  un- 
employment. ..." 

"Good  Lord,  do  you  think  we  can  solve  that!"  Ninian 
exclaimed. 

"No,  but  we  might  find  a  means  of  palliating  it.  My 
own  notion.  ..." 

"I  thought  you  had  some  scheme  in  your  skull,  Roger!" 
said  Gilbert.     ' '  Let 's  have  it ! " 

"Well,  it's  rather  raw  in  my  mind  at  present,  but  my 
idea  is  that  the  way  to  mitigate  the  problem  of  unemploy- 
ment, perhaps  solve  it,  is  to  join  it  on  to  the  problem  of 
defence.  Supposing  we  decided  to  create  a  big  army  .  .  . 
and  we  shall  need  one  sooner  or  later  with  all  these  ententes 
and  alliances  we're  forming  .  .  .  the  problem  would  be  to 
form  it  without  dislocating  the  industrial  system.  My 
idea  is  to  make  it  compulsory  for  every  man  to  undergo 
military  training,  about  a  couple  of  months  every  year, 
and  call  the  men  up  to  the  camp  in  times  of  trade  depression. 
You  wouldn't  have  to  call  them  all  up  at  once  .  .  .  trades 
aren't  all  slack  at  the  same  time  .  .  .  and  you 'd  arrange  the 
period  of  training  as  far  as  possible  to  fit  in  with  the  slack 
time  in  each  job.  I  mean,  people  who  are  employed  in 
gasworks  could  easily  be  trained  in  the  summer  without 
dislocating  the  gas  industry  .  .  .  colliers,  too,  and  people 
like  that  .  .  .  and  men  who  are  slack  in  the  winter,  like 
builders'  men,  could  be  trained  in  the  winter.  That's  my 
idea  roughly.  There 'd  be  training  going  on  all  the  year 
round,  and  of  course  you  could  vary  the  duration  of  the 
period  of  training  .  .  .  never  less  than  two  months,  but 


332  CHANGING  WINDS 

longer  if  trade  were  badly  depressed.  You'd  save  a  lot 
of  misery  that  way  .  .  .  you'd  keep  your  men  fit  and 
fed  and  their  homes  going  .  .  .  and  you  'd  have  the  nucleus 
of  a  large  army.  I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  bring  the 
Board  of  Education  in.  If  we  were  to  raise  the  school 
age  to  sixteen,  and  then  make  it  compulsory  for  every  boy 
to  go  into  a  cadet  corps  or  something  of  the  sort  for  a 
couple  of  years,  you'd  relieve  the  pressure  on  the  labour 
market  at  that  end  enormously,  and  you'd  make  the  job 
of  getting  the  army  ready  much  easier  in  case  of  emergency. 
A  couple  of  years'  training  to  begin  with,  followed  by  a 
couple  of  months'  further  training  every  year,  would  make 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  to  us  militarily,  and  it  would 
do  away,  largely,  with  the  unemployed!" 

''How  about  apprentices?"  said  Gilbert.  "If  you  raise 
the  school  age  to  sixteen  and  then  make  all  the  boys  go 
into  training  until  they  are  eighteen,  you're  going  to  make 
a  big  difficulty  in  the  way  of  getting  skilled  labour ! ' ' 

"I  don't  think  so.  As  far  as  I  can  make  out  the  period 
of  apprenticeship  is  much  too  long.  Five  or  six  years  is  a 
ridiculous  time  to  ask  a  boy  to  spend  in  learning  his  job, 
and  any  trade  unionist  will  tell  you  that  every  apprentice 
spends  the  first  year  or  two  in  acting  as  a  sort  of  messenger : 
fetching  beer  and  cleaning  up  things.  I  suppose  the  real 
reason  why  the  period  of  indenture  is  so  long  is  because  the 
Unions  don't  want  to  swamp  the  labour  market  with 
skilled  workers.  Well,  why  shouldn  't  we  reduce  the  period 
of  apprenticeship  by  giving  the  boy  a  military  training? 
You  see,  don't  you,  what  a  problem  this  is?  I  thought  of 
talking  about  it  to  the  Improved  Tories,  and  when  we'd 
argued  it  over  a  bit,  we  'd  put  our  proposals  into  print  and 
circulate  them  among  informed  people,  and  invite  them  to 
come  and  tell  us  what  they  think  of  the  notion  from  their 
point  of  view  .  .  .  Trade  Union  secretaries  and  military 
men  and  employers  and  people  like  that  .  .  .  and  then, 
we  might  publish  a  book  on  it.  Jaures  wrote  a  book  on 
the  French  Army  ...  a  very  good  book,  too  .  .  .  so  there 


CHANGING  WINDS  333 

isn't  anything  remarkably  novel  about  the  notion,  except, 
perhaps,  my  idea  of  linking  the  military  problem  on  to 
the  unemployment  problem.  You  and  Quinny  could  write 
the  book,  Gilbert,  because  you've  got  style  and  we  want 
the  book  to  be  written  so  that  people  will  read  it  without 
getting  tied  up.  Of  course,  if  you  must  go  to  Ireland, 
you  must,  but  it  seems  a  little  needless,  doesn  't  it  ? " 

"This  business  will  take  time,"  Gilbert  replied.  ''Tons 
of  time.  I  don't  think  our  visit  to  Ireland  will  affect  it 
much.    You'll  come  with  me,  won't  you,  Quinny?" 

Henry  nodded  his  head.  *'At  once,  if  you  like,"  he 
answered,  hoping  indeed  that  Gilbert  would  suggest  an  im- 
mediate departure.  If  Lady  Cecily  were  to  hear  that  he 
had  left  London.  .  .  . 

"To-night  will  do,"  said  Gilbert. 


* '  Are  you  going  to  work  ? ' '  Gilbert  said  to  Henry,  when 
the  others  had  gone. 

"I  think  so,"  Henry  replied.  "I  haven't  written  a 
word  for  days.    You?" 

"I'll  go  and  have  a  squint  at  the  Pall  Mall  .  .  .  just  to 
make  sure  that  last  night  wasn't  a  dream.  I'll  come  back 
to  lunch.  It  'ud  be  rather  jolly  to  go  on  from  Dublin 
and  see  your  father,  Quinny  ? ' ' 

"Yes  .  .  .  that's  a  notion,  I'll  write  and  tell  him  we're 
coming.  Bring  back  the  afternoon  papers  when  you  come, 
Gilbert,  I  'd  like  to  see  what  they  say  about  the  play ! ' ' 

"Righto!"  said  Gilbert. 

Henry  sat  on  in  the  breakfast  room,  after  Gilbert  had 
gone,  reading  the  criticisms  of  "The  Magic  Casement,"  and 
then,  when  he  had  finished,  he  went  up  to  his  room  and 
began  to  work  on  "Turbulence."  He  wrote  steadily  for 
an  hour,  and  then  read  over  what  he  had  done. 

"This  is  better,"  he  murmured  to  himself,  pleased  with 
what  he  had  written,  and  he  prepared  to  go  on,  but  before 


334  CHANGING  WINDS 

he  could  start  again,  there  was  a  knock  on  the  door,  and 
Magnolia  came  in. 

"You're  wanted  on  the  telephone,  sir!"  she  said. 

"Who  is  it?" 

"I  don't  know,  sir.     They  didn't  say!" 

He  went  downstairs  and  took  up  the  receiver.  "Hil- 
loa!"  he  said. 

"Is  that  you,  Paddy?"  was  the  response. 

"Cecily!" 

"Yes.  I've  just  had  your  letter.  Are  you  very  cross, 
Paddy?" 

He  felt  perturbed,  but  he  tried  to  make  his  voice  sound 
as  if  he  were  indifferent  to  her. 

"No,"  he  replied,  "I'm  not  cross  at  all.  ..." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  are,  Paddy.  You're  very  cross,  and 
you're  going  to  teach  me  a  lesson,  aren't  you?" 

He  could  hear  her  light  laugh  as  she  spoke. 

"I  can't  make  you  believe  that  I'm  not  cross  at  all," 
he  said. 

"No,  you  can't.  Paddy!"  Her  voice  had  a  coaxing 
note  as  she  said  his  name. 

"Yes." 

'  *  Come  to  lunch  with  me.  Jimphy  's  gone  off  for  the  day 
somewhere.  ..." 

"I'm  sorry!  .  .  ." 

* '  Do  come,  Paddy.    I  want  you  to  come.    I  do,  really ! '  * 

He  paused  for  a  second  or  two  before  he  replied.  After 
all  why  should  he  not  go?  .  .  . 

"I'm  sorry,"  he  said,  "but  I  really  can't  lunch  with 
you.    I  'm  going  to  Ireland !  .  .  . " 

"Going  where?" 

'  *  Ireland.     To-night !    I  'm  going  with  Gilbert ! ' ' 

"But  you  can't  go  this  minute.  Paddy,  you  are  cross, 
and  you're  spiteful,  too.  If  you  aren't  cross,  you'll  come 
and  lunch  with  me.  You  ought  to  come  and  say  'good- 
bye' to  me  before  you  go  to  Ireland.  ..." 

"  I  've  got  a  lot  to  do  .  .  .  packing  and  things ! ' ' 


CHANGING  WINDS  335 

* '  You  can  do  that  afterwards ! ' '  Her  voice  became  more 
insistent.  "Paddy,  I  want  you  to  come.  You  must 
come!  ..." 

He  hesitated,  and  she  said,  "Do,  Paddy!"  very  appeal- 
ingly. 

It  would  be  weak,  he  told  himself,  to  yield  to  her  now 
.  .  .  she  would  think  she  had  only  to  be  a  little  gracious 
and  he  would  be  at  her  feet  immediately;  and  then  he 
thought  it  would  be  weak  not  to  yield  to  her.  "It'll  look 
as  if  I  were  afraid  to  meet  her  .  .  .  running  away  like  this. 
Or  that  I  'm  sulking  .  .  .  just  petulant ! ' ' 

"All  right,"  he  said  to  her,  "I'll  come!" 

"Come  now!" 

He  nodded  his  head,  forgetting  that  she  could  not  see 
him,  and  she  called  to  him  again,  "You'll  come  now,  won't 
you?" 

*  *  Yes, ' '  he  replied.     "  I  '11  come  at  once ! ' ' 

He  put  up  the  receiver  and  reached  for  his  hat.  "I 
wonder  what  she  wants, ' '  he  thought.  * '  Perhaps  she  really 
does  love  me  and  my  letter 's  frightened  her ! ' '  His  spirits 
rose  at  the  thought  and  he  went  jauntily  to  the  door  and 
opened  it,  and  as  he  did  so,  Ninian,  pale  and  miserable, 
panted  up  the  steps. 

"My  God,  Quinny!"  he  exclaimed,  almost  sobbing,  "the 
Gigantic 's  gone  down ! ' ' 

"The  what?" 

"The  Gigantic's  gone  down!  It's  in  the  paper.  Look, 
look!"  He  was  unbalanced  by  grief  as  he  thrust  the 
Westminster  Gazette  and  the  Globe  into  Henry's  hands. 

"But,  damn  it,  she  can't  have  gone  down,"  Henry  said, 
"she's  a  Belfast  boat  .  .  .  she  can't  have  gone  down!" 

"She  has,  I  tell  you,  and  Tom  Arthurs  ...  oh,  my  God, 
Quinny,  he 's  gone  down  too !  The  decentest  chap  on  earth 
and  .  .  .  and  he's  been  drowned!" 

Henry  led  him  into  the  house.  "I  went  out  to  get  the 
evening  papers  to  see  about  Gilbert's  play,"  he  went  on, 
"and  that's  what  I  saw.     I  saw  her  at  Southampton  going 


336  CHANGING  WINDS 

off  as  proud  as  a  queen  .  .  .  and  now  she's  at  the  bottom 
of  the  Atlantic.  And  Tom  waved  his  hand  to  me.  He  was 
going  to  show  me  over  her  properly  when  he  came  back. 
Isn't  it  horrible,  Quinny?  What's  the  sense  of  it  .  .  . 
what  the  hell's  the  sense  of  it?" 

"She  can't  have  gone  down  ..."  Henry  said,  as  if  that 
would  comfort  Ninian. 

"She  has,  I  tell  you.  ..." 

Henry  went  to  the  sideboard  and  took  out  the  whisky. 

"Here,  Ninian,"  he  said,  pouring  out  some  of  it,  "drink 
that.    You're  upset!  ..." 

"No,  I  don't  want  any  whisky.  God  damn  it,  what's 
the  sense  of  a  thing  like  this!  A  man  like  Tom 
Arthurs!  ..." 

There  was  a  noise  like  the  sound  of  a  taxi-cab  drawing 
up  in  front  of  the  house,  and  presently  the  bell  rang,  and 
then,  after  a  moment  or  two,  the  door  opened,  and  Mrs. 
Graham  came  hurrying  into  the  room. 

"Ninian!    Where's  Ninian?"  she  said  wildly  to  Henry. 

* '  He 's  here,  Mrs.  Graham ! ' ' 

She  went  to  him  and  clutched  him  tightly  to  her.  "Oh, 
my  dear,  my  dear,"  she  said. 

"What  is  it,  mother?"  he  asked,  calming  himself  and 
looking  at  her. 

"I  telephoned  to  your  office,  but  you  weren't  there, 
so  I  came  here  to  find  you.  I  couldn't  rest  content  till  I'd 
seen  you!" 

"What  is  it,  mother?" 

"That  ship,  Ninian.  If  you'd  been  on  it  .  .  .  you 
wanted  to  go,  and  I  said  why  didn't  you  .  .  .  oh,  my  dear, 
if  you  'd  been  on  it,  and  I  'd  lost  you ! ' ' 

He  put  his  arms  about  her  and  drew  her  on  to  his 
shoulder.    "I'm  all  right,  mother!"  he  said. 

Henry  left  the  room  hurriedly.  He  went  to  the  kitchen 
and  called  to  Mrs.  Clutters.  "I  won't  be  in  to  lunch,"  he 
said.  "Don't  let  any  one  disturb  Mrs.  Graham  and  Mr. 
Graham  for  a  while.    They  .  .  .  they've  had  bad  news!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  887 

Then  he  went  out  of  the  house.     The  taxi-cab  in  which 
]\Irs.  Graham  had  come  was  still  standing  outside  the  door, 
"I  ain't  'ad  me  fare  yet,"  said  the  driver, 
"All  right!"  said  Henry.     "I'll  pay  it." 
He  gave  Cecily's  address  to  the  man,  and  then  he  got 
into  the  cab. 


He  could  hear  the  newspaper  boys  crying  out  the  news 
of  the  disaster  as  he  was  driven  swiftly  to  Cecily's  house. 
The  sinking  of  the  great  ship  had  stunned  men 's  minds  and 
humiliated  their  pride.  This  beautiful  vessel,  skilfully 
built,  the  greatest  ship  afloat,  had  seemed  imperishable,  the 
most  powerful  weapon  that  man  had  yet  forged  to  subdue 
the  sea,  and  in  a  little  while,  recoiling  from  the  hidden  ice- 
berg, she  had  foundered,  broken  as  easily  as  a  child's  toy, 
carrying  all  her  vanity  and  strength  to  the  bottom.  .  .  . 

"It  isn't  true,"  he  kept  on  saying  to  himself  as  if  he 
were  trying  to  contradict  the  cries  of  the  newsvendors. 
"She's  a  Belfast  boat  and  Belfast  boats  don't  go 
down.  ..." 

He  felt  it  oddly,  this  loss.  The  drowning  of  many  men 
and  women  and  children  affected  him  merely  as  a  vague, 
impersonal  thing.  * '  Yes,  it 's  dreadful, ' '  he  would  say  when 
he  thought  of  it,  but  he  was  not  moved  by  it.  When  he 
remembered  Tom  Arthurs  he  was  stirred,  but  less  than 
Ninian  had  been.  He  could  see  him  now,  just  as  he  had 
stood  in  the  shipyard  that  day  when  John  Marsh  and 
Henry  had  been  with  him,  and  he  had  watched  the  work- 
men pouring  through  the  gates.  "Those  are  my  pals!" 
he  had  said.  .  .  .  Poor  Tom  Arthurs !  Destroyed  with  the 
thing  that  he  had  conceived  and  his  "pals"  had  built !  But 
perhaps  that  was  as  he  would  have  wished.  It  would  have 
hurt  Tom  Arthurs  to  have  lived  on  after  the  Gigantic  had 
gone  down.  ...  It  was  not  the  drowning  of  a  crowd  of 
people  or  the  drowning  of  Tom  Arthurs  that  most  affected 


338  CHANGING  WINDS 

Henry.  It  was  the  fact  that  a  boat  built  by  Belfast  men 
had  foundered  on  her  maiden  trip,  on  a  clear,  cold  night 
of  stars,  reeling  from  the  iceberg's  blow  like  a  flimsy 
yacht.  He  had  the  Ulsterman's  pride  in  the  Ulsterman's 
power,  and  he  liked  to  boast  that  the  best  ships  in  the 
world  were  built  on  the  Lagan.  ... 

"By  God,"  he  said  to  himself,  ''this '11  break  their  hearts 
in  Belfast!" 

The  cab  drew  up  before  the  door  of  Cecily's  house,  and 
in  a  little  while  he  was  with  her. 

"Have  you  heard  about  the  Gigantic f"  he  said,  as  he 
walked  across  the  room  to  her. 

*'0h,  yes,"  she  answered,  "isn't  it  dreadful?  Come  and 
sit  down  here ! ' ' 

He  had  not  greeted  her  otherwise  than  by  his  question 
about  the  Gigantic,  and  she  frowned  a  little  as  she  made 
room  for  him  beside  her  on  the  sofa. 

"That  great  boat!  .  .  ."  he  began,  but  she  interrupted 
him. 

"I  suppose  you're  still  cross,"  she  said. 

"Cross?" 

"Yes.    You  haven't  even  shaken  hands  with  me!" 

He  remembered  now.  "Oh!"  he  said  in  confusion,  but 
could  say  no  more. 

"Are  you  really  going  to  Ireland?"  she  asked,  putting 
her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  feeling  his  resolution  weakening 
just  because  she  had  touched  him. 

"But  why?" 

"You  know  why!"  he  said. 

Her  hand  dropped  from  his  arm.  "I  don't  know  why," 
she  exclaimed  pettishly,  and  he  saw  and  disliked  the  way 
her  lips  turned  downwards  as  she  said  it. 

"I  can't  bear  it,  Cecily,"  he  exclaimed.  "I  must  have 
you  to  myself  or  ...  or  not  have  you  at  all!" 

"Perfectly  absurd!"  she  murmured. 

"It  isn't  absurd.    How  can  you  expect  me  to  feel  happy 


CHANGING  WINDS  339 

when  I  see  you  going  off  with  Jimphy?  Can't  you  under- 
stand, Cecily?  Here  I  am  with  you  now,  but  if  Jimphy 
were  to  come  into  the  room,  I  should  have  to  ...  to  give 
way,  to  pretend  that  I  'm  not  in  love  with  you ! ' ' 

"I  can't  see  what  difference  it  makes,"  she  said. 
"Jimphy  and  I  don't  interfere  with  each  other.  It's  ridic- 
ulous to  make  all  this  fuss.  I  don't  see  any  necessity  to 
go  about  telling  everybody!  ..." 

"I  didn't  propose  that,"  he  interrupted. 

"Yes,  you  did,  Paddy,  dear!  You  asked  me  to  run  away 
with  you,  and  what's  that  but  telling  everybody?" 

He  felt  angry  with  her  for  what  seemed  to  him  to  be 
flippancy.  "  I  'm  in  earnest,  Cecily ! "  he  said.  "  I  'm  not 
joking!" 

"I'm  in  earnest,  too.  I  don't  want  to  run  away  with 
you  .  .  .  not  because  I  don't  love  you  ...  I  do  love  you, 
Paddy,  very  much  .  .  .  but  it's  so  absurd  to  run  away 
and  make  a  ...  a  mountain  out  of  a  molehill.  We  should 
be  awfully  miserable  if  we  were  to  elope.  We'd  have  to 
go  to  some  horrid  place  where  we  shouldn't  know  anybody 
and  there 'd  be  nothing  to  do.  Really,  it's  much  pleasanter 
to  go  on  as  we  are  now,  Paddy.  You  can  come  here  and 
take  me  to  lunch  sometimes  and  go  to  the  theatre  with  me 
when  Jimphy  wants  to  go  to  a  music-hall,  and  .  .  .  and 
so  on!" 

He  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  notion  that  she  was 
"chattering"  in  the  Lensley  style. 

* '  It  would  be  decenter  to  go  away  together, ' '  he  said. 

She  moved  away  from  him  angrily.  "You're  a  prig, 
Paddy !"  she  exclaimed.  "  You  can  go  to  Ireland.  I  don't 
care!" 

He  got  up  as  if  to  go,  but  did  not  move  away.  He  stood 
beside  her  irresolutely,  wishing  to  go  and  wishing  to  stay, 
and  then  he  bent  over  her  and  touched  her.  "Cecily,'*  he 
said,  "come  with  me!" 

"No!"  she  answered,  keeping  her  back  to  him, 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  and  he  walked  across  the  room 


340  CHANGING  WINDS 


towards  the  door.  His  hand  was  on  the  handle  when  she 
called  to  him. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  stay  to  lunch?"  she  said. 

"You  told  me  to  go!  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  but  I  didn't  mean  immediately.  I  shall  be  all 
alone." 

He  went  back  to  her  very  quickly,  and  sat  down  beside 
her  and  folded  her  in  his  arms. 

"I  loathe  you,"  he  cried,  with  his  lips  pressed  against 
her  cheek.  "I  loathe  you  because  you're  so  selfish  and 
brutal.    You  don't  really  care  for  me.  ..." 

"Oh,  I  do,  Paddy!  .  .  ." 

"No,  you  don't.  You  were  making  love  to  Ninian  last 
night!  .  .  ." 

"  So  that's  it,  is  it?  .  .  ." 

"No,  it  isn't.  Ninian  doesn't  care  about  you  or 
about  any  woman.  He's  not  like  me,  a  soft,  sloppy  fool. 
You  don 't  love  me.  If  I  were  to  leave  you  now,  you  'd  find 
some  one  to  take  my  place  quite  easily.  Lensley  or 
Boltt!  .  .  ." 

* '  They  're  too  middle-aged,  Paddy ! ' ' 

He  pushed  her  away  from  him.  "Damn  it,  can't  you  be 
serious ! "  he  shouted  at  her. 

"You're  very  rude,"  she  replied. 

"I'd  like  to  beat  you !    I'd  like  to  hurt  you !  .  .  ." 

She  smiled  at  him  and  then  she  put  her  arms  about  his 
neck  and  drew  him  towards  her.  "You  don't  loathe  me, 
Paddy,"  she  said  softly,  soothing  him  with  her  voice,  "you 
love  me,  don't  you?" 

"Will  you  come  away  with  me?    Now?" 

"No!"  She  kissed  him  and  got  up.  "Let's  go  to 
lunch,"  she  said. 

He  felt  that  he  ought  to  leave  her  then,  but  he  followed 
her  meekly  enough. 

"I  don't  think  I'll  stay  to  lunch,"  he  said  weakly. 

"Yes,  you  will!"  she  replied.  "You  can  take  me  to  a 
picture  gallery  afterwards!  ..." 


Via       ■ 


CHANGING  WINDS  341 


They  did  not  go  to  a  picture  gallery.  The  spring  air 
was  so  fresh  that  she  declared  she  must  go  for  a  drive. 

"Let's  go  to  Hampstead!"  he  said,  signalling  to  a  taxi- 
driver.     "We'll  have  tea  at  Jack  Straw's  Castle!" 

"Yes,  let's!"  she  exclaimed. 

She  had  tried  to  persuade  him  not  to  return  to  Ireland, 
but  he  had  insisted  that  he  must  go  because  of  his  promise 
to  Gilbert. 

"Do  you  care  for  Gilbert  more  than  you  care  for  me?" 
she  had  asked,  making  him  wonder  at  the  casual  way  in 
which  she  spoke  Gilbert's  name.  It  seemed  incredible,  lis- 
tening to  her,  that  Gilbert  had  been  her  lover.  .  .  . 

"It's  hardly  the  same  thing,"  he  replied. 

Then,  after  more  pleading  and  anger,  she  had  given  in. 
"Very  well,"  she  said,  "I  won't  ask  you  again,  and  don't 
let 's  talk  about  it  any  more.    We  '11  enjoy  to-day  anyhow ! ' ' 

The  taxi-cab  carried  them  swiftly  to  Hampstead. 

"We'll  get  out  at  the  Spaniards'  Road,"  he  said,  "and 
walk  across  the  Heath.     It's  beautiful  now!" 

"All  right,"  she  answered. 

They  did  as  he  said,  and  walked  about  the  Heath  for 
nearly  an  hour.  The  fresh  smell  of  spring  exhilarated 
them,  and  they  sat  for  a  little  while  on  a  seat  which  was 
perched  on  rising  ground  so  that  they  were  able  to  see 
far  beyond  the  common.  Young  bracken  fronds  were 
thrusting  their  curled  heads  upwards  through  the  old  brown 
growth ;  and  the  buds  on  the  blackened  boughs  were  burst- 
ing from  their  cases  and  offering  delicate  green  leaves  to 
the  sunlight ;  and  the  yellow  whins  shone  like  little  golden 
stars  on  their  spiky  stems.  Henry's  capacity  for  sensuous 
enjoyment  was  fully  employed,  and  he  would  willingly  have 
sat  there  until  dusk,  drawing  his  breath  in  with  as  much 
luxiirious  feeling  as  a  woman  has  when  she  puts  new  linen 
on  her  limbs.  He  would  have  liked  to  strip  and  bathe  his 
naked  body  in  the  Highgate  Ponds  or  run  with  bare  feet 


342  CHANGING  WINDS 

over  the  wet  grass  .  .  .  but  Cecily  was  tired  of  the  Heath. 

"Isn't  it  time  we  got  some  tea?"  she  said,  getting  up 
and  looking  about  her  as  if  she  were  searching  for  a 
teashop. 

"I  suppose  it  is,"  he  answered  reluctantly,  and  he  rose 
too.  "We  go  this  way,"  he  said,  moving  in  the  direction 
of  Jack  Straw's  Castle.  ** Let's  come  back  to  the  Heath," 
he  added,  "after  we've  had  tea!" 

"But  why?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  because  it's  so  beautiful." 

"I  thought  it  was  getting  chilly,"  she  objected. 


"I  don't  see  why  you  want  to  go  to  Ireland,"  she  ex- 
claimed, as  she  handed  a  cup  of  tea  to  him. 

"I've  told  you  why,"  he  said, 

"Oh,  but  that  isn't  a  reason.  And  why  does  Gilbert 
want  to  go?    He  isn't  Irish." 

"I  suppose!  .  .  ." 

"It's  so  absurd  to  go  rushing  about  like  this.  I  should 
have  thought  Gilbert  would  want  to  stay  in  town  now  that 
his  play  is  on.  Is  it  a  success?  I  haven't  looked  at  the 
papers,  but  then  I  never  do.  I  can't  read  newspapers  .  .  . 
they're  so  dull.  This  tea  is  nice.  And  it's  much  nicer  in 
town  now  than  it  can  possibly  be  in  Ireland.  Besides,  I 
don't  want  you  to  go!" 

He  let  her  chatter  on,  hoping  that  she  would  exhaust 
her  interest  in  his  visit  to  Ireland  and  begin  to  talk  of 
something  else,  but  he  did  not  know  that  Cecily  had  greater 
tenacity  than  might  appear  from  the  incoherence  of  her 
conversation.  She  held  on  to  a  subject  until  it  was  set- 
tled irrevocably.  She  looked  very  charming  as  she  sat 
opposite  to  him,  and  he  wondered  how  Jimphy  could  be 
so  careless  of  her  loveliness.  The  sunlight  shining  through 
the  window  above  her  head  kindled  her  hair  so  that  the 


CHANGING  WINDS  843 

ripples  of  it  shone  like  gold,  and  the  delicate  sunburnt 
flush  of  her  cheeks  deepened  in  the  soft  glow.  He  put  out 
his  hand  and  touched  her  fingers.  "Beautiful  Cecily!"  he 
said,  and  she  smiled  because  she  liked  to  be  told  how 
beautiful  she  was. 

"But  you're  going  to  Ireland,"  she  said. 

He  did  not  answer. 

"You  say  you'd  do  anything  for  me,"  she  proceeded, 
"but  when  I  ask  you  not  to  go  to  Ireland,  you  refuse.  If 
you  really  love  me!  ..." 

"I  do  love  you,  Cecily!" 

"Well,  why  don't  you  stay  in  town?  It's  so  queer  to 
go  away  the  moment  you  get  to  know  me ! "  She  began  to 
laugh. 

"What's  the  joke?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  I've  just  remembered  how  little  we  know  of  each 
other.  You  kissed  me  the  first  time  you  came  to  my 
house ! ' ' 

"I  loved  you  the  moment  I  saw  you  .  .  .  that  day  in 
the  Park  when  I  w£is  with  Gilbert  ...  I  loved  you  then. 
I  didn't  know  who  you  were,  but  I  loved  you.  I  couldn't 
help  it,  Cecily.  You  were  looking  at  Gilbert  and  then  your 
eyes  shifted  and  you  looked  at  me,  and  I  loved  you,  dear. 
I  worried  Gilbert  to  tell  me  about  you!  ..." 

"What  did  he  say?"  she  interrupted  eagerly,  leaning 
her  elbows  on  the  table  and  resting  her  chin  in  the  cup 
of  her  hands. 

"He  told  me  who  you  were,"  Henry  answered  awk- 
wardly. 

"But  didn't  he  say  anything  else?  .  .  .  didn't  he?  .  .  ." 

"I've  forgotten  what  he  said.  .  .  .  Then  I  saw  you  at 
the  St.  James's  ...  he  told  me  you  often  went  to  first- 
nights,  and  I  went  specially,  hoping  to  see  you!  ..." 

"Dear  Paddy,"  she  said,  "and  you  were  so  shy!" 

"And  so  jealous  and  angry  because  you  talked  all  the 
time  to  Gilbert,  and  ignored  me.    You  made  me  go  out  of 


344.  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  box  with  Jimphy,  and  as  I  went,  I  saw  you  putting  your 
hand  out  to  touch  Gilbert,  and  I  heard  you  calling  him, 
'Gilbert,  darling.'  ..." 

She  laughed,  but  did  not  speak. 

"And  I  was  frightfully  jealous.  Gilbert's  my  best 
friend,  Cecily,  but  I  hated  him  that  night.  I  suppose  .  .  . 
oh,  I  don't  know!" 

"What  were  you  going  to  say?"  she  asked. 

He  looked  at  her  intently  for  a  few  moments.  Her  grey 
eyes  were  full  of  laughter,  and  he  wondered  whether  she 
would  answer  his  question  seriously. 

*^Well?"  she  said. 

"Do  you  still  love  Gilbert,  Cecily?  Am  I  .  .  .  just 
some  one  to  fill  in  the  time  .  .  .  until  Gilbert !  .  .  . " 

She  sat  back  in  her  seat,  and  the  laughter  left  her  eyes. 

"Let's  go!"  she  said. 

But  he  did  not  move.  "You  do  love  him,"  he  persisted, 
"and  you  don't  love  me.  ..." 

"Are  you  going  to  Ireland  with  him?"  she  demanded. 

"Yes!" 

"Very  well,  then!"  The  tightened  tone  of  her  voice 
indicated  that  there  was  no  more  to  be  said,  but  he  would 
not  heed  the  warning,  and  persisted  in  demanding  ex- 
planations. 

"If  you  go  to  Ireland  with  Gilbert,"  she  said,  "I'll 
never  speak  to  you  again ! ' ' 

She  closed  her  lips  firmly,  and  he  saw  the  downward 
curve  of  them  again,  and  while  he  pondered  on  what  she 
had  said,  the  thought  shot  across  his  mind  that  that  down- 
ward curve  would  deepen  as  she  grew  older.  "She'll  get 
very  bad-tempered  I  ..." 

"I  mean  it,"  she  said,  interrupting  his  thought  and 
compelling  him  to  pay  heed  to  her.  "I'll  never  speak  to 
you  again  if  you  go  away  now." 

"But  I've  promised,  Cecily!"  he  protested. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "I  don't  see  what  that's 
got  to  do  with  it,"  she  answered. 


CHANGING  WINDS  846 


They  came  out  of  the  inn,  and  stood  for  a  few  moments 
before  the  door. 

"Shall  we  go  back  to  the  Heath?"  he  said. 

"No,"  she  replied.     "Let's  go  home." 

"Very  well!" 

He  felt  broken  and  crushed  and  tongueless.  Cecily  did 
not  speak  to  him  as  they  walked  towards  the  Spaniards' 
Road,  nor  did  he  speak  to  her.  The  angry  look  on  her  face 
deterred  him. 

He  hailed  a  taxi,  and  they  got  into  it  and  were  driven 
down  Fitzjohn  's  Avenue  and  homewards.  Once  she  turned 
to  him  and  said  again,  "Are  you  going  to  Ireland  with 
him?"  but  when  he  answered,  "I  must,  Cecily,  I  said  I 
would!"  she  turned  away  again  and  did  not  speak  until 
the  taxi  drew  up  before  her  door. 

"Perhaps  you'd  rather  I  didn't  come  in?"  he  said,  ex- 
pecting that  she  would  dismiss  him,  but  she  did  not  do  so. 

"Jimphy  may  be  at  home,"  she  said,  "and  probably 
he'd  like  to  see  you!" 

"I  thought  he'd  gone  away  for  the  day!" 

"He  may  have  returned." 

She  went  up  the  steps  of  the  house  while  he  paid  the 
driver  of  the  taxi-cab,  and  spoke  to  the  servant  who  had 
opened  the  door. 

"He's  not  in,"  she  said  to  Henry  when  he  joined  her. 

"Then  I  won't  .  .  ." 

"Come  in,"  she  interrupted.  "I  want  to  say  something 
to  you!" 

He  followed  her  into  the  hall  and  up  the  stairs  to  the 
drawing-room,  where  she  left  him  while  she  went  to  her 
room  to  take  off  her  outdoor  garments.  He  moved  aim- 
lessly about  until  she  returned.  She  had  changed  her 
clothes,  and  was  wearing  a  loose  golden  silk  teagown  with 
a  girdle  round  it,  and  the  gold  in  her  hair  seemed  to  be 
enriched  by  the  gold  in  her  dress.     She  went  up  to  him 


346  CHANGING  WINDS 

quickly,  putting  her  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  drawing 
him  close  to  her. 

"Paddy!"  she  said,  and  her  voice  was  very  tense. 

"Yes?"  he  answered. 

"I've  never  asked  you  to  do  anything  for  me,  have  I?" 
She  put  her  arms  round  his  neck  and  kissed  him.  He  tried 
to  answer  her,  but  could  not  because  her  lips  were  tightly 
pressed  on  his. 

"You  won't  go,  will  you?"  she  murmured,  closing  her 
eyes  and  tightening  her  hold  on  him. 

He  struggled  a  little.  .  .  .  "Why  don't  you  want  me  to 
go  with  Gilbert?"  he  said. 

But  she  did  not  answer  his  question.  She  drew  him 
back  to  her  again,  whispering,  "I  love  you,  Paddy,  I  love 
you.    I  don't  love  any  one  else  but  you!" 

He  threw  his  arms  about  her,  and  they  stood  there  for- 
getful of  everything.  .  .  . 

She  moved  a  little,  and  he  led  her  to  the  sofa  where  they 
sat  down  together.  She  laid  her  head  on  his  shoulder,  and 
he  put  his  arms  around  her  and  drew  her  warm,  yielding 
body  close  to  his.  He  could  feel  the  beating  of  her 
heart.  .  .  . 

"You  won't  go,  will  you,  Paddy?"  she  whispered. 

"No,"  he  answered,  bending  over  her  and  kissing  her. 

She  drew  herself  closer  to  him.  "Dear  Paddy!"  she 
said. 


He  went  up  to  Gilbert's  room  immediately  after  he  re- 
turned home.  All  the  way  back  from  Lady  Cecily 's,  he  had 
told  himself  that  he  must  tell  Gilbert  at  once  that  he  was 
not  going  to  Ireland  because  he  was  in  love  with  Cecily 
"and  because  she's  in  love  with  me!"  and  he  had  repeated 
his  resolution  many  times  to  himself  in  the  hope  that  by 
thinking  exclusively  of  it,  there  would  be  no  opportunity 
for  other  thoughts  to  come  into  his  head.    He  shrank  from 


CHANGING  WINDS  847 

the  meeting  with  Gilbert,  for  his  conscience  hurt  him  be- 
cause of  his  betrayal  of  Gilbert's  love  and  friendship.  He 
had  palliated  his  conduct  by  saying  to  himself  that  Gilbert 
had  given  Cecily  up,  but  the  excuse  would  not  serve  to  ab- 
solve him  from  the  sense  of  unfriendly  behaviour. 

"I'm  making  excuses  for  myself,"  he  murmured. 
** That's  all  I'm  doing.  The  decent  thing  is  to  go  to  Gil- 
bert and  tell  him  everything  ...  or  ...  or  I  could  write 
it.  I  could  write  a  long  letter  to  him  and  get  Magnolia 
to  give  it  to  him.  .  .  .  Perhaps  that  'ud  be  better  than 
telling  him.  It'll  be  difficult  to  get  a  chance  to  say  any- 
thing to  him  with  Roger  and  Ninian  about.  ..." 

He  broke  off  his  thoughts  and  spoke  out  loud.  ''You're 
funking  it,"  he  said.     "Damn  you,  you're  funking  it!" 

"I  must  tell  him  myself,"  he  went  on.  "I  must  stand 
up  to  some  one.  I  can't  go  on  funking  things  for- 
ever. .  .  ." 

It  was  odd,  he  thought,  that  he  had  no  feeling  for  Jim- 
phy.  He  had  not  any  sense  of  shame  because  he  had  made 
love  to  Jimphy's  wife.  Jimphy  appeared  to  him  only  in  a 
comic  light.  Yet  Jimphy  had  professed  friendship  for 
him.  "Of  course,"  he  said,  "they  don't  love  each  other!" 
but  in  this  mood  of  self-confession  which  held  him,  he  ad- 
mitted that  he  would  have  felt  no  contrition  even  if  Jimphy 
had  been  devoted  to  Cecily. 

" He 's  a  born  cuckold ! "  he  went  on.  "I  might  be  afraid 
to  take  his  wife  from  him,  but  I  wouldn't  be  ashamed  to  do 
it.    No  one  would.  ..." 

He  had  opened  the  door  and  gone  quickly  up  the  stairs, 
hoping  that  he  would  not  meet  any  of  the  others.  Gilbert 
would  probably  be  in  his  study  or  in  his  bedroom,  and  so 
he  could  talk  to  him  at  once  and  get  the  thing  over.  He 
knocked  on  the  study  door,  and  then,  receiving  no  answer, 
opened  it  and  looked  in.  Gilbert  was  not  there.  He  went 
to  the  bedroom  and  called  "Are  you  in,  Gilbert?"  but  there 
was  no  response.  "I  suppose  he's  downstairs,"  he  said 
to   himself,    and   he   walked    part   of   the   way   down   to 


348  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  dining-room,  stopping  midway  when  he  saw  Magnolia. 

"Tell  Mr.  Farlow  I  want  to  speak  to  him,"  he  called  to 
her.     "Up  in  my  study!" 

He  went  to  his  room,  and  stood  staring  out  of  the  win- 
dow until  Gilbert  came. 

"Hilloa,  Quinny,  what's  up?"  Gilbert  said,  as  he  en- 
tered the  study. 

Henry  turned  to  him.  He  could  feel  the  pallor  of  his 
cheeks,  so  nervous  was  he. 

"Gilbert,"  he  said  desperately,  "I  want  to  talk  to  you!" 

"Yes?  .  .  ." 

"I'm  not  going  to  Ireland  with  you!" 

"Not  going!  .  .  .  Why?" 

He  moved  mechanically  towards  Gilbert  and  stopped  at 
the  table  where  he  wrote.  He  stood  for  a  few  moments, 
fingering  things,  turning  over  pieces  of  foolscap  and  tap- 
ping the  table  with  a  paper  knife. 

"What  is  it,  Quinny?"  Gilbert  said  again,  and  as  he 
spoke,  he  came  up  to  Henry  and  touched  him.  "Is  it  .  .  . 
is  it  anything  about  Cecily?"  Henry  nodded  his  head. 
"I  thought  so,"  Gilbert  continued.  He  moved  away  and 
sat  down.    "Well,  tell  me  about  it,"  he  said. 

"I'm  in  love  with  her,  Glibert!" 

"Yes." 

"  I  ...  I  asked  her  to  run  away  with  me !  .  .  . " 

Gilbert  laughed.  "You  have  hustled,  Quinny,"  he  said. 
"And  she  wouldn't,  eh?" 

"No!"  Gilbert's  laughter  stimulated  him,  and  he  spoke 
more  fluently.  "But  she's  in  love  with  me.  She  told  me 
so.  I've  just  come  from  her.  And  she  wants  me  to  stay 
in  town." 

"To  be  near  her?" 

"Yes.  Yes,  I  suppose  so.  I  had  to  tell  you.  I  felt  that 
I  must  tell  you.  Gilbert,  I'm  ashamed,  but  I  can't  help  it. 
I  love  her  so  much  that  I'd  .  .  .  I'd  do  anything  for  her." 

Gilbert  did  not  move  nor  did  he  speak.  He  sat  in  his 
chair,  looking  very  intently  at  Henry. 


I 


CHANGING  WINDS  349 

*'I  can't  understand  myself,"  Henry  went  on.  "My 
feelings  are  hopelessly  mixed  up.  I  want  to  do  decent 
things  and  I  loathe  cads,  but  all  the  same  I  do  caddish 
things  myself.  I  want  to  be  straight,  but  I  'm  not  straight. 
...  It's  awfully  hard  to  explain  what  I  mean,  but  there's 
something  in  me  that  seems  to  keep  pulling  me  out  of  line, 
and  I  haven 't  enough  force  in  me  to  beat  it.  I  suppose  it 's 
the  mill  in  my  blood.     My  grandfather  was  a  mill-owner." 

Gilbert  shook  his  head  and  smiled.  *'I  don't  think  your 
notions  of  heredity  are  sound,  Quinny.  Is  that  all  you 
have  to  confess?" 

"All?" 

"Yes.    There  isn't  anything  else?" 

"No.  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  I'm  ashamed,  but  I  must 
tell  you,  too,  that  although  I'm  ashamed,  I  shan't  stop  lov- 
ing Cecily.     I  can't.  ..." 

Gilbert  got  up  and  went  over  to  him.  He  sat  on  the 
edge  of  the  table  so  that  Henry,  when  he  looked  up,  had  to 
gaze  straight  at  him. 

"You're  a  rum  bloke,  Quinny,"  he  said.  "I'm  always 
telling  you  that,  aren't  I?  But  you  were  never  so  rum  as 
you  are  now.  It's  no  good  pretending  that  I  don't  feel 
,  .  .  feel  anything  about  Cecily.  I  do.  But  I've  known 
about  you  and  her  for  some  while.  I  knew  you'd  fall  in 
love  with  her  that  day  in  the  Park  when  you  were  excited 
about  her  beauty  and  were  so  anxious  that  I  should  intro- 
duce you  to  her.  Of  course,  I  knew  you'd  fall  in  love  with 
her.  I'm  not  a  dramatist  for  nothing.  So  what  you  say 
isn't  news.  I  mean,  it  doesn't  surprise  me.  Quinny,  I'm 
awfully  fond  of  you,  old  chap,  much  more  than  I  am  of 
Ninian  or  Roger.  I  expect  it's  because  you're  such  a 
blooming  baby.  I'm  not  really  upset  about  your  being  in 
love  with  Cecily.  That  had  to  be.  But  I  'm  awfully  upset 
about  you ! ' ' 

"Me,  Gilbert?"  Henry  said,  looking  up  in  astonishment. 

"Yes.  You  haven't  got  much  resolution,  have  you? 
Cecily  has  only  got  to  blub  a  little  or  kiss  you  a  few  times, 


350  CHANGING  WINDS 

and  you're  done  for  .  .  .  she  can  do  what  she  likes  with 
you.  You  haven't  got  the  courage  to  run  away  from  her, 
and  you  haven't  the  power  to  stand  up  to  her  and  say  *Be- 
damned  to  you'!" 

♦'No,  I  know  that!" 

*'So,  I  think  I'll  just  kidnap  you,  Quinny.  I  think  I'll 
make  you  come  to  Ireland  with  me.  ..." 

"You  can't  do  that,  Gilbert!" 

"Can't  I,  by  God!"  Gilbert's  voice  had  changed  from 
its  bantering  note  to  a  note  of  resolve.  "Do  you  think 
I'm  going  to  let  my  best  friend  make  an  ass  of  himself,  and 
do  nothing  to  prevent  him?  Quinny,  you're  an  ass! 
You're  too  fond  of  running  about  saying  you  can't  help 
this  and  you  can't  help  that  .  .  .  and  spilling  over!  And 
what  do  you  think 's  going  to  be  the  end  of  this  business? 
I  suppose  you  imagine  that  Cecily '11  change  her  mind  some 
day,  and  run  away  with  you?  Do  you  think  she'll  run 
away  with  you  when  she  wouldn't  run  away  with  me? 
Damn  you,  you've  got  a  nerve  to  think  a  thing  like 
that.  ..." 

"I  don't  think  that,  Gilbert,"  Henry  interjected. 

"Oh,  yes,  you  do!  Of  course,  you  do!  That's  natural 
enough.  I  wouldn't  mind  so  much  if  I  thought  there  were 
a  chance  that  she  would  run  away  with  you,  but  she 
won't!" 

"You  wouldn't  mind!  ..." 

"No.  Why  should  I?  If  she  won't  run  away  with  me, 
she  couldn't  do  better  than  run  away  with  you.  And 
there 'd  be  a  chance  then  that  you'd  get  on  with  your  job. 
You'd  soon  shake  down  into  some  sort  of  balance  if  you 
were  together,  but  you'll  never  get  level  if  you  go  on  in 
the  way  you're  going  now.  You'll  run  up  into  one  emo- 
tional crisis  and  down  into  another,  and  you  11  spend  the 
time  between  them  in  ...  in  recovering.  That's  all. 
And  your  work  will  go  to  blazes.  I  know,  Quinny.  You 
see,  I  was  your  predecessor.  ..." 

"But  Cecily's  proud  of  my  work.  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  851 

"She  was  proud  of  mine.  So  she  said.  Look  here, 
Quinny,  buck  up!  How  much  of  your  new  novel  have  you 
written  since  you  knew  her  ? ' ' 

"Not  very  much,  of  course,  but!  ..." 

"Exactly.  I  couldn't  work  either  when  .  .  .  when  I 
was  your  predecessor.  Cecily's  greedy,  Quinny!  She 
wants  all  of  you  .  .  .  and  she  has  the  power  to  make  you 
give  the  whole  of  yourself  to  her.  If  you  think  that  'all 
for  love  and  the  world  well  lost'  is  the  right  motto  for  a 
man  .  .  .  then  Cecily's  your  woman.  But  is  it?  Hang  it 
all,  Quinny,  you  haven't  done  your  work  yet  .  .  .  you've 
only  begun  to  do  it!" 

He  got  off  the  table  and  began  to  search  among  Henry's 
papers. 

*  *  What  are  you  looking  for  ? ' '  Henry  asked. 

"I  want  the  manuscript  of  'Turbulence.'    Where  is  it?" 

"I'll  get  it.     What  do  you  want  it  for?" 

He  opened  a  drawer  and  took  out  the  few  sheets  of  the 
novel  that  were  written. 

"Is  that  all?"  said  Gilbert. 

"Yes,"  Henry  answered. 

"Cecily  doesn't  seem  to  inspire  you,  Quinny,  does  she, 
any  more  than  she  inspired  me?  You  haven't  written  a 
whole  chapter  yet.  ...  Do  you  remember  what  we  swore 
at  Rumpell's?" 

"We  swore  a  whole  lot  of  things!  ..." 

"Yes,  but  the  most  important  thing?  We  swore  we'd 
become  Great.  I  don't  know  that  any  of  us  ever  will  be 
Great.  ...  I  get  the  sensation  now  and  then  that  we're 
frightfully  crude,  even  Roger,  but  we  can  become  some- 
thing better  than  one  of  Cecily's  lovers,  can't  we?" 

"I  don't  know  that  I  want  to  be  anything  else.  ..." 

"For  shame,  Quinny!" 

Gilbert  put  the  manuscript  back  into  the  drawer  from 
which  Henry  had  taken  it. 

"You'll  come  to  Ireland  with  me?"  he  said. 

"No,  Gilbert,  I  won't!" 


362  CHANGING  WINDS 

**You  will.  Ill  break  your  jaw  if  you  don't  come.  Ill 
knock  the  stuffing  out  of  you  if  you  don't  come.  We  can 
catch  the  night  train  and  be  in  Dublin  to-morrow  morn- 
ing! ..." 

"I  promised  Cecily  I  wouldn't  go.  .  .  ." 

"And  you  promised  me  you  would  go.  I've  packed  all 
the  things  I  want,  and  it  oughtn't  to  take  you  long  to  pack 
a  trunk.  I'll  come  and  help  you  after  dinner  .  .  .  there's 
the  gong  .  .  .  we'll  just  have  time  if  you  hop  round 
quickly.  Ninian  can  telephone  for  a  taxi  to  take  us  to 
Euston!" 

"It's  no  good,  Gilbert.  ..." 

"Come  on.  I  can  smell  onions,  and  I'd  risk  my  im- 
mortal soul  for  onions.  Boiled,  fried,  stewed  or  roasted, 
Quinny,  there 's  no  vegetable  to  beat  them.  ..." 


8 

"I'm  not  going,  Gilbert!  ..." 

"You  are  going!" 

They  had  finished  dinner  and  were  now  in  Henry's  bed- 
room. Gilbert  had  instructed  Ninian  to  telephone  for  a 
taxi.  Then,  shoving  Henry  before  him,  he  had  climbed  the 
stairs  to  Henry's  room  and  started  to  pack  his  trunk. 

"You  can't  make  me  go!  .  .  ." 

Gilbert  took  an  armful  of  shirts  from  the  chest  of  draw- 
ers and  dropped  them  into  the  trunk.  "Once,  when  I  was 
wandering  in  Walworth,"  he  said,  "I  heard  a  coster- 
monger  threatening  to  give  another  costermonger  a  thick 
ear,  a  bunged-up  eye  and  a  mouth  full  of  blood.  That's 
what  you'll  get  if  you  don't  hop  round.  What  suits  do 
you  want?" 

Henry  did  not  answer.  He  walked  to  the  window  and 
stood  there,  peering  out  at  the  trees  in  the  garden.  A 
taxi-cab  drove  up  to  the  door  and  presently  Ninian  came 
bounding  up  the  stairs  to  tell  them  of  its  arrival. 


CHANGING  WINDS  S58 

**Tell  him  to  wait,"  said  Gilbert,  and  Ninian  hurried 
back  to  do  so.  "If  you  won't  choose  your  suits  yourself," 
he  went  on  to  Henry,  "I  shall  have  to  do  it  for  you. 
Socks,  socks,  where  the  hell  do  you  keep  your  socks? ..." 

It  seemed  to  Henry  that  he  could  see  Cecily's  face  shin- 
ing out  of  the  darkness.  He  could  feel  her  arms  about  him 
and  hear  her  beautiful  voice  telling  him  that  she  loved  him. 
"I  won't  go,"  he  said  to  himself.     "I  won't  go!  .  .  ." 

* '  If  you  'd  only  help  to  pack,  we  'd  save  heaps  of  money, ' ' 
Gilbert  grumbled.  "It's  sickening  to  think  of  that  taxi 
sitting  out  there  totting  up  tuppences.  Come  and  sit  on 
the  lid  of  this  trunk,  will  you?" 

Henry  did  not  move  from  the  window.  Gilbert  straight- 
ened himself.  For  a  moment  or  two  he  could  not  see 
clearly  because  he  was  giddy  with  stooping.  Then  he 
crossed  the  room  and  took  hold  of  Henry's  arm. 

"Come  on,  Quinny,"  he  said,  pulling  him  towards  the 
trunk. 

"What's  the  good  of  fussing  like  this,  Gilbert,  when  I've 
told  you  I  won't  go.  .  .  ." 

* '  Well,  sit  on  the  trunk  anyhow.  I  may  as  well  close 
the  thing  now  I've  filled  it.  .  .  ." 


He  called  Ninian,  and  between  them  they  carried  the 
luggage  downstairs  to  the  cab. 

"Now  then,  Quinny!"  said  Gilbert. 

"I'm  not  going,  I  tell  you.  ..." 

' '  Get  into  the  cab,  damn  you.     Go  on ! " 

He  shoved  him  forward  so  that  he  almost  fell  against  the 
step  of  the  taxi,  and  Ninian  caught  hold  of  him,  and  they 
lifted  him  and  heaved  him  into  the  taxi. 

"Get  in,  Ninian,"  said  Gilbert.  He  turned  and  shouted 
up  the  hall  to  Roger,  "Come  on,  Roger!  You'd  better 
come  and  see  us  off!" 


864  CHANGING  WINDS 

None  of  them  spoke  during  the  short  drive  to  Euston. 
Henry  sulked  in  a  corner  of  the  cab,  telling  himself  that 
it  was  monstrous  of  Gilbert  to  treat  him  in  this  fashion, 
and  vowing  that  nothing  would  induce  him  to  get  into  the 
train  .  .  .  and  then,  his  mind  veering  again,  telling  him- 
self that  perhaps  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  go  to  Ireland 
for  a  while.  Cecily  had  chopped  and  changed  with  him. 
Why  should  he  not  chop  and  change  with  her  ?  .  .  .  Neither 
Ninian  nor  Roger  made  any  remark  on  the  peculiarity  of  the 
journey  to  Ireland.  They  had  known  in  the  morning  that 
Gilbert  and  Henry  were  going  away  that  night,  but  it  was 
clear  that  something  had  happened  since  then,  that  Gilbert 
was  more  intent  on  the  journey  than  Henry.  ...  No 
doubt,  they  would  know  in  good  time.  Probably,  Ninian 
thought  to  himself,  that  woman  Jayne  is  mixed  up  in 
it.  .  .  . 

"You  get  the  tickets,  Ninian,"  Gilbert  said  when  they 
reached  Euston.  "Firsts.  Democracy's  all  right  in  the- 
ory, but  I  don 't  like  it  in  a  railway  carriage ! ' ' 

"Where's  the  money?"  said  Ninian, 

"Money!  What  do  you  want  money  for?  All  right! 
Here  you  are!    You  can  pay  me  afterwards,  Quinny!" 

They  had  only  a  few  minutes  in  which  to  get  into  the 
train,  and  Gilbert,  putting  his  arm  in  Henry's  and  hurry- 
ing him  towards  the  Irish  mail,  was  glad  that  the  wait 
would  not  be  long. 

"It's  ridiculous  to  behave  like  this,"  said  Henry,  as 
they  shoved  him  into  a  carriage. 

"I  know  it  is,"  Gilbert  answered.  He  turned  to  Roger. 
"We  may  want  grub  during  the  night.  Get  some,  will 
you !  Sandwiches  will  do  and  hard-boiled  eggs,  if  you  can 
get  'em.  ..." 

He  turned  to  Henry.  "You're  my  friend,  Quinny," 
he  said,  "I  can't  let  you  make  a  mucker  of  everything,  can 
I?" 

Henry  did  not  answer. 

"I  know  exactly  how  you  feel,"  Gilbert  went  on.    "I 


CHANGING  WINDS  866 

should  feel  like  it  myself  if  I  were  in  your  place,  but  if  I 
were,  Quinny,  I'd  be  damned  glad  if  you'd  do  the  same  for 
me!" 

10 

"Good  Lord!"  Gilbert  exclaimed,  as  the  train  drove  out 
of  London,  ' '  I  forgot  to  pack  your  toothpaste.  ..." 


THE  THIRD  BOOK 

OF 

CHANGING  WINDS 


.  .  .  quitted  all  to  save 
▲  world  from  utter  loss. 


Paradise  Lost. 


THE  FIRST  CHAPTER 


As  the  boat  turned  round  the  end  of  the  pier  and  moved 
up  the  harbour  to  her  berth,  Gilbert,  eyeing  the  passengers, 
caught  sight  of  Henry  and  instantly  hallooed  to  him.  The 
passage  from  Kingstown  had  been  smooth,  and  Henry, 
heartened  by  the  sea  air  and  sunshine,  pressed  eagerly 
through  the  throng  of  passengers  so  that  he  might  be  near 
the  gangway  and  so  be  among  the  first  to  descend  from  the 
steamer.  He  called  a  greeting  to  Gilbert,  and  then,  the 
boat  being  berthed,  hurried  forward  to  the  gangway.  He 
could  not  get  off  the  steamer  as  quickly  as  he  wished  for 
the  number  of  passengers  on  board  was  very  large,  and  he 
fidgeted  impatiently  until  he  was  able  to  get  ashore. 

''Well  send  this  bag  on  by  the  waggonette,"  Gilbert 
said,  when  they  had  shaken  hands  and  congratulated  each 
other  on  their  healthy  looks,  *  *  and  walk  over  to  Tre  'Arrdur, 
and  we'll  gabble  on  the  way.  Here,"  he  added,  taking  a 
letter  out  of  his  breastpocket,  "you  can  read  that  while  I 
find  the  man.  It's  from  Ninian.  It  came  this  morn- 
ing! ..." 

He  seized  Henry's  bag  and  hurried  off  with  it,  leaving 
Henry  to  follow  slowly  or  remain  where  he  was,  as  he 
pleased,  and  then,  before  Henry  had  time  to  do  more  than 
take  the  letter  from  its  envelope  and  glance  carelessly  at 
the  first  page  of  it,  he  came  quickly  back.  *'Come  up,"  he 
said,  putting  his  arm  in  Henry's.  "You  can  read  it  as 
you  go  along.     There's  not  much  in  it!" 

They  left  the  pier  and  passed  through  the  station  into 
the  street. 

"Holyhead,"  said  Gilbert,  "is  a  good  place  to  get  drunk 
in!    We  won't  linger!  .  .  ." 

369 


360  CHANGING  WINDS 

They  took  the  lower  road  to  Tre'Arrdur  Bay  because 
it  was  quieter  than  the  upper  road,  and  as  they  walked, 
Henry  read  Ninian's  letter. 

"He  seems  to  like  South  America,"  he  said,  returning 
the  letter  to  Gilbert  when  he  had  finished  with  it. 

Gilbert  nodded  his  head.  "That  old  Tunnel  of  his 
doesn't  get  itself  built,  does  it?  But  it  must  be  great  fun 
building  a  railway  in  a  place  like  that.  There's  a  revolu- 
tion on  the  first  and  third  Tuesdays  of  the  month,  and  the 
President  of  the  Republic  and  the  Emperor  of  the  Empire 
are  in  power  for  a  fortnight  and  in  exile  for  another  one. 
So  Ninian  says.  He  told  Roger  in  his  last  letter  that  he 
had  had  to  kick  the  emperor's  backside  for  him  for  inter- 
fering with  the  railway  contract.  .  .  .  Oh,  by  the  bye, 
Rachel's  produced  an  infant.  She  says  it's  like  Roger, 
but  Roger  hopes  not.  He  says  it's  like  nothing  on  earth. 
He  came  to  see  me  off  from  Euston  yesterday  and  when  I 
asked  him  to  describe  it  to  me,  he  said  he  couldn't  ...  it 
was  indescribable.  It  looks  raw,  he  says.  It  must  be 
frightfully  comic  to  be  a  father,  Quinny ! ' ' 

"I  don't  see  anything  comic  about  it,"  Henry  replied. 
"I'd  rather  like  to  be  a  father  myself." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  become  one.  They  say  it's  easy 
enough.    First,  you  get  a  wife.  ..." 

"What  sort  of  an  infant  is  it?     Is  it  a  boy  or  a  girl?" 

"Great  Scott!"  said  Gilbert,  "I  forgot  to  ask  that. 
That  was  very  careless  of  me.  Look  out,  Quinny,  here's  a 
motor,  and  that's  Holy  Mountain  on  the  right.  We'll  go 
up  it  to-morrow,  if  you  like.  It's  not  much  of  a  climb. 
Just  enough  to  jig  you  up  a  bit.  There's  a  chap  in  the 
hotel  who  scoots  up  mountains  like  a  young  goat.  He 
asked  me  to  go  up  Snowdon  with  him,  but  when  I  asked 
him  what  the  tramfare  was,  he  was  slightly  snorty  in  his 
manner.    How's  the  novel  getting  on?" 

"It'll  be  out  in  September.  I  corrected  the  final  proofs 
last  month.    I  think  it's  rather  good." 

"Better  than  'Turbulence'  or  'The  Wayward  Man'?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  361 

"Yes,  I  think  so.  I'm  calling  it  'The  Fennels.'  That's 
the  name  of  the  people  it's  about.  I've  taken  an  Ulster 
family  and  .  .  .  well,  that's  what  I've  done.  I've  taken 
an  Ulster  family  and  just  shown  it.  My  father  likes  it 
much  better  than  anything  else  I've  done,  although  he  was 
very  keen  on  'Turbulence.'  " 

"How  is  your  father?" 

' '  Oh,  much  better,  thanks,  but  still  a  bit  shaky.  He  hates 
all  this  Volunteer  business  in  Ireland.  You  remember 
John  JNIarsh,  don't  you,  and  Galway?  You  saw  them  in 
Dublin  that  time !  .  .  . "  Gilbert  nodded  his  head  and  so 
Henry  did  not  complete  his  sentence.  "Well,  they're  up 
to  their  necks  in  the  opposition  Volunteers.  I  saw  John 
in  Dublin  yesterday  for  a  few  minutes.  He  was  very  ex- 
cited about  the  gun-running  in  Ulster !  Damned  play-act- 
ing! He  could  hardly  spare  the  time  to  say  'How  are 
you?'  to  me,  he  was  so  anxious  to  be  off  to  his  drilling. 
He  hasn't  done  any  writing  for  a  long  time  now.  He's 
become  very  friendly  with  Mineely!  ..." 

"Is  that  the  Labour  man?" 

"Yes.  I  liked  him  when  I  met  him,  but  he's  fright- 
fully bitter  since  the  strike.  He's  got  more  brains  than 
all  the  others  put  together,  and  he  influences  John  tre- 
mendously. I  don't  wonder  at  his  bitterness.  The  em- 
ployers were  brutal  in  that  strike,  Gilbert,  and  Mineely  will 
never  forget  it.  Hell  make  trouble  for  them  yet,  and 
they'll  deserve  all  they  get.  He  said  to  me  'They  won't 
deal  reasonably  with  us,  so  they  can't  complain  if  we  deal 
unreasonably  with  them.  They  set  the  police  on  to 
us.  .  .  .'  " 

"What's  he  going  to  do  then?" 

"I  don't  know,  but  he's  drilling  his  men  as  hard  as  ever 
he  can.  He  means  to  hit  back.  After  he'd  spoken  about 
the  police,  he  said,  'The  next  time  we  go  to  them,  we'll 
have  guns  in  our  hands.  Mebbe  they'll  listen  to  us  thenl' 
He's  like  John  ...  he  doesn't  care  what  happens  to  him- 
self.   All  those  people,  John  and  Galway  and  Mineely, 


362  CHANGING  WINDS 

have  a  contempt  for  death  that  I  can't  understand.  I 
loathe  the  thought  of  dying  .  .  .  but  they  don't  seem  to 
mind.  It's  their  religion  partly,  I  suppose,  but  it's  some- 
thing more  than  religion.  If  they  were  poor,  like  the  slum 
people,  I  could  understand  it  better.  You  can't  frighten 
them  by  threatening  to  kill  them.  Their  life  is  such  a  rot- 
ten one  that  they'd  be  much  better  off  if  they  were  dead, 
even  if  there  were  no  heaven,  and  I  suppose  they  feel  that 
.  .  .  and  of  course  the  Catholic  religion  teaches  them  to 
despise  life!  But  it  isn't  all  religious  fervour  or  the  ap- 
athy of  people  who  're  too  poor  to  mind  whether  they  live  or 
die.  Marsh  and  Galway  and  Mineely  are  moved  by  a  sort 
of  nationalistic  ecstasy  .  .  .  Marsh  and  Galway  more  than 
Mineely,  I  think,  because  there's  a  bitterness  in  him  that 
isn't  in  them.  They  think  of  Ireland  first,  and  he  thinks 
of  starving  workmen  first.  They're  Ireland  mad.  They 
really  don't  value  their  lives  a  happorth.  They'd  love  to 
be  martyrised  for  Ireland.  It's  a  kind  of  lust,  Gilbert. 
They  get  a  sensual  look  on  their  faces  .  .  .  almost  .  .  . 
when  they  talk  of  dying  for  Ireland." 

"It's  a  little  silly  of  us  English  people  who  love  life  so 
much  to  try  and  govern  a  people  like  that,"  said  Gilbert. 


Much  had  happened  to  them  in  the  two  years  that  had 
elapsed  since  the  day  on  which  Gilbert  carried  Henry  off  to 
Dublin.  The  Bloomsbury  household  had  come  to  an  end. 
Suddenly  and,  as  it  seemed  to  them,  inexplicably,  Mrs. 
Clutters  had  died.  It  had  never  occurred  to  any  of  them 
that  Mrs.  Clutters  could  die.  They  seldom  saw  her.  The 
kitchen  was  her  domain,  and  Magnolia  was  her  messenger. 
If  they  had  any  preferences  or  prejudices  concerning  food, 
they  made  them  known  to  Magnolia,  and  Magnolia  made 
them  known  to  Mrs.  Clutters.  Ninian  returning  home  in 
an  epicurean  mood,  might  announce  that  he  had  seen  mush- 
i-ooms  in  a  greengrocer's  window.    "Magnolia,"  he  would 


CHANGING  WINDS  S^ 

say,  "let  there  be  mushrooms!"  and  Magnolia  would  an- 
swer, "Yes,  sir,  certainly,  sir!"  and  behold  in  the  morning 
there  would  be  mushrooms  for  breakfast.  Or  Gilbert  would 
give  their  opinion  of  a  dish.  "Magnolia,  we  do  not  like 
scrambled  eggs.  We  like  our  eggs  boiled,  fried,  poached, 
beaten  up  in  milk,  Mr.  Graham  even  likes  them  raw,  but 
none  of  us  like  them  scrambled !  .  .  . "  and  Magnolia  would 
say, ' '  Yes,  sir,  certainly,  sir ! "  and  so  scrambled  eggs  ceased 
to  be  seen  on  their  breakfast  table.  Magnolia  always  said, 
"Yes,  sir,  certainly,  sir!"  If  they  had  informed  her 
that  the  Judgment  Day  was  to  begin  that  afternoon 
at  three  o'clock.  Magnolia,  they  felt  sure,  would  say,  "Yes, 
sir,  certainly,  sir!"  and  go  on  with  her  work.  .  .  .  There 
seemed  to  be  no  adequate  excuse  for  Mrs.  Clutters'  death 
.  .  .  "an'  everythink  goin'  on  so  nice  an'  all!"  as  Mag- 
nolia said  .  .  .  and  yet  she  had  died.  There  had  been  de- 
lay in  serving  breakfast,  and  Roger,  anxious  to  catch  a 
train,  had  been  impatient. 

"Magnolia!"  he  shouted  from  the  door,  "Magnolia!" 

"Yes,  sir!"  Magnolia  answered  in  an  agitated  voice. 

They  waited  for  her  to  add  "Certainly,  sir!"  but  she 
did  not  do  so,  and  they  looked  oddly  at  each  other,  feeling 
that  something  unusual  had  happened. 

"We're  waiting  for  breakfast,"  Roger  said  in  a  less 
impatient  voice. 

"Yes,  sir,  I'm  comin',  sir!  .  .  ." 

Magnolia  appeared  at  the  door,  very  red  in  the  face  and 
very  worried  in  her  looks,  and  placed  a  covered  dish  in 
front  of  Roger  who  was  the  father  of  the  four,  appointed 
to  carve  and  to  serve. 

"What's  this?"  Roger  demanded  when  he  had  removed 
the  cover. 

• '  Please,  sir,  it 's  eggs,  sir  1  Fried  eggs,  sir  I  That 's  what 
it's  supposed  to  be,  sir!"  Magnolia  replied  dubiously. 

"It's  a  bad  imitation.  Magnolia!"  Gilbert  said.  "I 
think  I'll  just  have  bread  and  marmalade  this  morning!" 

He  reached  for  the  marmalade  as  he  spoke,  and  Henry, 


364.  CHANGING  WINDS 

eyeing  the  eggs  with  disrelish,  murmured,  "After  you,  Gil- 
bert!" 

"Tell  Mrs.  Clutters  I  want  her,"  Roger  said  to  Mag- 
nolia. 

"Please,  sir,  she's  not  very  well  in  herself  this 
momin'.  ..." 

"Not  very  well!" 

*  *  Do  you  mean  to  say  she 's  ill  ? "  Ninian  shouted. 

"Yes,  sir.     It  was  me  fried  the  eggs,  sir!" 

"But  .  .  .  but  she  can't  be  ill,"  Ninian  continued. 

"Well,  she  is,  sir.  That 's  what  she  says  any 'ow.  'You'll 
*ave  to  cook  the  breakfis  yourself,'  she  says  to  me,  an'  when 
1  said  I  didn't  know  'ow,  she  said  'Well,  you  must  do  the 
best  you  can,  that's  all!'  an'  I  done  it,  sir.  She  don't  look 
well  at  all!  .  .  ." 

"How  long  has  she  been  ill?"  Roger  asked. 

"I  don't  know,  sir.  She  didn't  tell  me.  She  was 
groanin'  a  bit  yesterday  an'  the  day  before,  but  she 
wouldn't  give  in.  I  said  to  'er,  'If  I  was  you,  Mrs.  Clut- 
ters, I'd  'ave  a  doctor  an'  chance  it!'  an'  she  told  me  to 
'old  me  tongue,  so  of  course  I  wasn't  goin'  to  say  no  more, 
not  after  that.  I  mean  to  say,  I  can  take  a  'int  as  good  as 
any  one.  ..." 

"We'd  better  send  for  a  doctor,"  Roger  said,  inter- 
rupting Magnolia.  "I'll  telephone  to  Dunroon.  He  lives 
quite  near!"  Then  he  remembered  his  county  court  case, 
"You'd  better  telephone,  Quinny !  I  must  catch  this  train. 
Take  these  .  .  .  eggs  away,  Magnolia.  We  won't  say  any- 
thing more  about  them.    You  did  your  best ! ' ' 

"Yes,  sir,  I  did,  but  I  told  'er  I  didn't  know  'ow.  ..." 

"All  right!"  said  Roger,  passing  the  dish  to  her. 


Dr.  Dunroon  suggested  that  they  should  send  for  Mrs. 
Clutters'  friends. 


CHANGING  WINDS  865 

"Is  it  serious,  doctor?"  Henry  asked,  and  the  doctor 
nodded  his  head.     ''She's  dying,"  he  said. 

''Dying!" 

Magnolia,  disregarding  the  conventions,  had  stood  by, 
openly  listening  to  what  they  were  saying,  and  when  she 
heard  the  doctor  say  that  JNIrs.  Clutters  was  dying,  she  let 
a  howl  out  of  her  that  startled  them.  The  doctor  turned 
to  her  quickly. 

"Hold  your  tongue,"  he  said,  "or  she'll  hear  you.  Any- 
body 'ud  think  you  were  dying  by  the  noise  you're  mak- 
ing!" 

Magnolia  blubbered  away.  "I  'ate  to  'ear  of  anybody 
dyin',"  she  said.  "I  never  been  in  a  'ouse  before  where 
it's  'appened,  an'  besides  she's  been  good  to  me!"  Her 
mind  wandered  off  at  a  tangent.  "Any'ow,"  she  said, 
wiping  her  eyes,  "I  done  me  best.  No  one  can't  never  say 
I  ain't  done  me  best,  an'  the  best  can't  do  no  more!" 

"Has  she  got  any  friends,  Magnolia?  ..." 

It  seemed  to  them  to  be  extraordinary  that  this  woman 
had  lived  in  their  house,  had  worked  and  cared  for  them, 
and  yet  was  so  much  a  stranger  to  them  that  now,  in  this 
time  of  her  coming  dissolution,  they  did  not  know  where 
her  friends  were  to  be  found,  whether  indeed,  she  had  any 
friends.  "That's  very  English,"  Henry  thought;  "in  Ire- 
land we  know  all  about  our  servants!" 

"Well,  I  think  'e's  'er  'usband,"  Magnolia  replied. 
' '  Any  'ow,  'e  was  drunk  when  'e  come !  .  .  . " 

They  had  assumed  that  Mrs.  Clutters  was  a  widow,  a 
childless  widow.  .  ,  . 

"I've  seen  'im  'angin'  about  two-three  times,  an'  when 
I  said  to  'er,  'Mrs.  Clutters,  there's  your  friend  'angin' 
about  the  corner  of  the  street,  she  tole  me  to  mind  me  own 
business,  an'  then  she  'urried  out.  Of  course,  it  'adn't  got 
nothink  to  do  with  me,  *oo  'e  was,  an'  when  she  tole  me 
to  mind  me  own  business,  I  took  the  'int.  ..." 

' '  Do  you  know  where  he  lives  ? ' '  Gilbert  asked. 


366  CHANGING  WINDS 

"No,  sir,  I  don't.  When  she  told  me  to  mind  me  own 
business!  ..." 

The  approach  of  Death  had  made  Magnolia  amazingly 
garrulous.  She  said  more  to  them  that  morning  than  she 
had  said  to  them  all  the  rest  of  the  time  she  had  been  in 
their  service  .  .  .  and  mixed  up  with  her  reminiscences  of 
what  Mrs.  Clutters  had  said  to  her  and  what  she  had  said 
to  Mrs.  Clutters,  there  was  a  continual  statement  of  her  fear 
and  dislike  of  death,  followed  by  the  assertion  that  no  one 
'ad  ever  died  in  a  house  she'd  worked  in  before. 

"You'd  think  she  was  blaming  us  for  it,"  Gilbert  said 
afterwards. 

"Well,  you'd  better  go  and  ask  her  to  tell  you  where  her 
husband  lives,"  Henry  said  to  her,  but  she  shrunk  away 
from  him  when  he  said  that. 

"Oh,  I  couldn't  go  near  no  one  what  was  dyin',"  she 
said.    "I  ain't  used  to  it,  an'  I  don't  like  it!" 

Ninian  shoved  her  aside.    "  I  '11  go, ' '  he  said. 

"We'd  better  get  some  one  to  look  after  her,"  Gilbert 
proposed  when  Ninian  had  gone.  "Magnolia's  no  damn 
good!  .  .  ." 

"No,  sir,  I  ain't  .  .  .  not  with  dead  people  I  ain't!" 

"Clear  out,  Magnolia!"  Gilbert  shouted  at  her.  "Go 
and  make  the  beds  or  sit  in  the  kitchen  or  something ! ' ' 

"Yes,  sir,  certainly,  sir!"  Magnolia  answered,  and  then 
she  left  the  room. 

"I've  never  felt  such  a  helpless  ass  in  my  life  before," 
Gilbert  went  on  when  she  had  shut  the  door  behind  her. 
"I  simply  don't  know  what  to  do!" 

"We  can't  do  anything,"  Henry  murmured.  "Dun- 
roon  said  he'd  come  in  again  in  a  short  while.  Perhaps  if 
we  were  to  get  a  nurse  or  somebody.  There's  sure  to  be  a 
Nurses'  Home  near  to.     Can't  we  ring  up  somebody?" 

He  got  hold  of  the  telephone  book  and  began  to  turn  over 
the  pages  rapidly. 

"What  are  you  looking  for?"  Gilbert  asked. 

"Nursing  Homes,"  he  answered. 


CHANGING  WINDS  867 

"That's  no  good.    Let's  send  round  to  Dunroon's!  .  .  ." 

"He  won't  be  there!" 

"Some  one '11  be  there.    We'll  ring  'em  up!  .  .  ." 

Dr.  Dunroon's  secretary  was  there,  and  she  knew  ex- 
actly what  to  do.  "Oh,  very  well,"  she  said  in  a  voice  so 
calm  that  Gilbert  felt  reassured.  "I'll  send  some  one 
round  as  soon  as  possible!" 

Ninian  came  down  the  stairs  before  they  had  finished 
telephoning  to  Dr.  Dunroon's  secretary. 

"I'm  going  to  fetch  her  husband,"  he  whispered  to 
Henry,  and  then  he  left  them. 


"Let's  go  out,"  Gilbert  said  suddenly  to  Henry. 

The  nurse  had  arrived,  and  was  busy  in  attendance  on 
Mrs.  Clutters.  Magnolia,  full  of  the  antagonism  which 
servants  instinctively  feel  towards  nurses,  was  maintain- 
ing a  grievance  in  the  kitchen.  "Givin'  'er  orders,  as  if 
she  was  some  one!"  she  was  mumbling  to  herself.  "Too 
bossy,  she  is!  .  .  ." 

"It's  no  good  trying  to  do  any  work  to-day,"  Gilbert 
went  on.  "I  ...  I  couldn't  make  up  things  with  her 
.  .  .  up  there!" 

They  told  Magnolia  that  they  would  have  their  meals 
out,  and  that  she  need  not  trouble  to  cook  anything  for 
them,  and  they  sent  for  the  nurse  and  explained  their  cir- 
cumstances to  her.  "That's  all  right,"  she  said  cheer- 
fully, "I'll  look  after  myself!" 

They  set  off  towards  Hampstead,  but  after  a  while  they 
found  themselves  returning  to  Bloomsbury.  They  could 
not  keep  away  from  the  house.  .  .  .  They  tried  to  eat  a 
meal  at  the  Vienna  Cafe,  but  they  could  not  swallow  the 
food,  so  they  paid  their  bill  and  went  away.  They  wan- 
dered into  the  British  Museum,  and  tried  to  interest  them- 
selves in  Egyptology.  .  .  . 

"This  female,"  said  Gilbert,  pointing  to  the  mummy  of 


S68  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  Priestess  of  Amen-Ra,  "is  supposed  to  bring  frightful 
ill-luck  to  you  if  you  squint  at  her.  There  was  a  fellow  at 
Cambridge  who  was  cracked  about  her  .  .  .  used  to  come 
here  in  vac.  and  make  love  to  her  ...  sit  here  for  hours 
spooning  with  a  corpse.  I  often  wanted  to  smack  his  face 
for  him!" 

"Pose,  I  expect!"  Henry  replied.  **I  shoald  have 
thought  it  was  rather  dull  to  get  smitten  on  a  woman  who 's 
as  dead  as  this  one  is.  .  .  ." 

They  remembered  Mrs.  Clutters.  .  .  . 

"Let's  go  back  and  see  what's  happened,"  Gilbert  said, 
turning  away  from  the  case  which  held  the  Priestess.  .  .  . 

Ninian  met  them  in  the  hall.  "She's  dead,"  he  said. 
"Her  husband's  in  the  kitchen.  I  found  him  in  a  lodging- 
house  in  Camden  Town,  and  I  should  say  he's  a  first-class 
rotter!" 


They  sat  together  that  evening  without  speaking.  There 
was  to  have  been  a  meeting  of  the  Improved  Tories  to  talk 
over  Roger's  plan  for  enlarging  the  Army  and  mitigating 
the  problem  of  unemployment.  They  could  not  get  messages 
to  people  in  time,  and  so  part  of  the  evening  was  spent  in 
whispered  explanations  at  the  door  to  those  who  turned 
up. 

"I  think  I'll  go  to  bed,"  Ninian  said,  but  he  did  not 
move,  nor  did  any  of  them  move.  It  was  as  if  they  wished 
to  keep  together  as  long  as  possible. 

Magnolia,  red-eyed  from  weeping,  had  come  to  them 
earlier  in  the  evening,  declaring  that  she  was  frightened. 

"What  are  you  afraid  of?"  Roger  snapped  at  her. 

"  'Er!"  she  answered. 

"But  she's  dead!  ..." 

"Yes,  sir,"  Magnolia  said,  "that's  why!  I  don't  like 
goin'  upstairs  be  meself,  sir!  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  rubbish,  Magnolia!"  Roger  exclaimed. 


CHANGING  WINDS  S69 

"I  can't  'elp  bein'  afraid,  sir.  I  know  she's  dead  an' 
can 't  do  me  no  'arm  .  .  .  not  that  she  'd  want  to  do  me  any 
'arm  ...  I  will  say  that  for  'er  .  .  .  but  some'ow  I'm 
afraid  all  the  same,  sir,     I  can 't  'elp  it ! " 

'*I  want  to  get  a  book  out  of  my  room,"  Henry  inter- 
jected, "so  I'll  go  upstairs  with  her!" 

"Oh,  thank  you,  sir,"  said  Magnolia  gratefully.  "I 
know  she  wouldn't  'arm  me  if  she  could  'elp  it,  not  if 
she  was  alive  any'ow,  but  they're  different  when  they're 
dead!  ..."  She  broke  down,  blubbering  hopelessly. 
"Oh,  I  wish  I  was  'ome,"  she  moaned. 

* '  Come  on,  Magnolia ! ' '  Henry  said,  opening  the  door  for 
her. 

"That  girl's  getting  on  my  nerves,"  Gilbert  murmured 
when  she  had  gone. 

Magnolia  followed  Henry  upstairs.  They  had  to  pass  the 
room  in  which  the  dead  woman  lay,  and  Magnolia,  when 
she  reached  the  door,  gave  a  little  squeal  of  fright  and  ran 
forward,  thrusting  past  Henry.  .  .  .  "Don't  be  a  fool, 
Magnolia ! "  he  said,  catching  hold  of  her  arm  and  steady- 
ing her. 

"I'm  frightened,  sir!"  she  moaned,  looking  up  at  him 
with  dilated  eyes. 

"There's  nothing  to  be  afraid  of.     Come  along!" 

He  took  her  to  her  room  and  opened  the  door  for  her. 

"You're  all  right  now,  aren't  you?"  he  said,  switching 
on  the  light. 

"Yes,  thank  you,  sir!" 

"Good-night,  then!" 

"Good-night,  sir!" 

When  she  had  shut  the  door,  he  heard  her  turning  the 
key  in  the  lock,  and  he  smiled  at  her  precaution.  "That 
wouldn't  hinder  Mrs.  Clutters'  ghost  if  she  .  .  .  if  she 
started  to  walk!"  he  thought  to  himself,  as  he  descended 
the  stairs  to  his  room.  He  had  switched  off  the  light  on 
Magnolia's  landing,  but  there  was  a  light  showing  dimly 
up  the  stairs  from  the  landing  beneath.    It  shone  faintly 


870  CHANGING  WINDS 

on  the  door  of  the  room  in  which  Mrs.  Clutters'  body  was 
lying.  He  went  down  the  stairs  towards  the  door,  and 
then,  half-way  down,  stopped.  He  could  not  look  away 
from  the  door  ...  he  felt  that  in  a  moment  or  two  it  would 
open,  and  Mrs.  Clutters,  in  her  grave-clothes,  would  stand 
in  the  shadow  and  look  at  him  with  fixed  eyes.  .  .  . 

*  *  Don 't  be  a  fool ! "  he  said  aloud,  shaking  his  head  and 
dashing  his  hand  across  his  eyes  as  if  he  were  trying  to 
sweep  something  away.  *'I'm  nervy,  that's  what  it  is," 
he  went  on,  still  speaking  aloud.  **I'm  worse  than  Mag. 
nolia!  .  .  ." 

He  descended  the  rest  of  the  stairs,  determined  not  to 
show  any  sign  of  fear,  and  then,  as  he  passed  the  door,  he 
shut  his  eyes  and  hurried  by.  He  ran  down  the  next  flight 
of  stairs,  afraid  to  look  back,  and  did  not  pause  in  his  run- 
ning until  he  had  reached  the  ground  floor.  He  stood  still 
in  the  hall  for  a  few  minutes  to  recover  himself,  and  then 
he  entered  the  room  where  the  others  were  sitting. 

They  looked  up  at  him. 

"All  right?"  Ninian  asked,  and  Henry  nodded  his  head. 

"You  haven't  brought  the  book,"  Eoger  said. 

"No,"  he  answered,  "No  ...  I  changed  my  mind.  I 
didn  't  really  want  the  book.  I  just  said  that  to  ...  to  get 
Magnolia  out  of  the  room!" 

6 

Mrs.  Clutters'  husband  insisted  on  seeing  them  after  the 
funeral  because,  he  said,  he  wished  to  thank  them  for  all 
they  had  done  for  "  'er!"  He  made  a  jerk  over  his  shoul- 
der with  his  thumb  when  he  said  "  'er,"  and  they  gath- 
ered that  he  was  indicating  the  direction  of  Kensal  Green 
cemetery.  He  was  very  maudlin  and  drunk,  and  Ninian 
thought  that  he  ought  to  be  kicked. 

"I'm  shorry,"  he  said,  "to  be  thish  con  .  .  .  condish'n, 
gemmem,  but  y'see  it's  like  this.  A  gemman  said  to  me, 
y'see,  'Bert,'  'e  says  .  .  .  thash  my  name  .  .  .  Bert,  called 


CHANGING  WINDS  371 

after  Queen's  'usban'  .  .  .  Gaw'  bless  'er!  .  .  .  Alber' 
the  Goo'  they  called  'im  .  .  .  not  me,  oh,  Lor'  no!  .  .  . 
thish  gemmam,  'e  says  to  me,  'Bert,'  'e  says,  'come  an*  'ave 
one!'  an'  so  o'  course  I  'ad  to  'ave  one.  Thash  'ow  'twas, 
see!  Shorry  to  be  in  thish  disgrashful  state  .  .  .  thish 
sad  occas'n,  gemmem.  Very  shorry!  I  thank  you!"  He 
turned  to  leave  them,  staggering  towards  the  door.  "I 
ain't  been  a  good  'usban'  to  'er,"  he  went  on,  again  mak- 
ing the  jerking  gesture  over  his  shoulder  with  his  thumb. 
"Thash  a  fac'.  I  ain't.  But  I  'pologise.  I'm  shorry! 
Can't  say  no  more'n  that,  can  I?    Goo'-ni',  gemmem!" 

And  then  he  staggered  out. 

"Somebody  ought  to  do  him  in,"  said  Ninian,  going  to 
see  that  he  left  the  house  as  quickly  as  possible. 

"Well,"  said  Roger,  when  Ninian  had  returned,  "what 
are  we  going  to  do  next?" 

"Sack  Magnolia,"  said  Gilbert. 

"And  then?"  Roger  went  on. 

"I  don't  know,"  Gilbert  replied. 

"I  suppose  we  can  get  another  housekeeper,"  Henry 
suggested. 

"Yes,  we  could  do  that,"  said  Gilbert. 

Roger  got  up  and  moved  about  the  room  for  a  few  mo- 
ments. "I  think  I  shall  get  married,"  he  said  at  last. 
"I've  got  to  get  married  some  time,  and  I  might  as  well 
get  married  now.  This  .  .  .  this  business  seems  to  pro- 
vide an  opportunity,  don't  you  think?" 

"It's  a  pity  to  break  up  the  house,"  Gilbert  murmured. 

"It'll  have  to  be  broken  up  some  day,"  Roger  retorted. 

Ninian  joined  in.  "There's  talk  of  a  big  railway  con- 
tract in  South  America,  and  I  might  have  to  go.  Hare 
spoke  of  sending  me.     In  about  six  months'  time.  ..." 

"We  might  let  the  house  furnished  for  the  remainder  of 
the  lease, ' '  Roger  went  on.  *  *  Perhaps  some  one  would  take 
the  furniture  over  altogether.  ...  I  could  use  some  of  it, 
of  course,  for  my  house  when  I  get  married ! ' ' 

"You've  settled  it  then?"  said  Gilbert. 


Sn  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Not  exactly.  I  haven't  said  anything  to  Kaehel  yet. 
The  idea  occurred  to  me  in  the  chapel  while  the  parson 
was  saying  the  Burial  Service ! ' ' 

"I  could  have  hit  that  fellow,"  Gilbert  exclaimed. 
*  *  Gabbling  it  off  like  that !  I  suppose  he  was  in  a  hurry  to 
get  home  to  tea!" 

They  sat  in  silence  for  a  while,  each  of  them  conjuring 
up  the  vision  of  the  cold  little  service  in  the  cemetery 
chapel.  Magnolia,  clothed  in  black,  had  sobbed  loudly, 
while  Mr.  Clutters  sniffed  and  said  **A-men"  very  em- 
phatically, and  the  parson,  regarding  the  little  group  of 
mourners  with  the  curiosity  of  a  man  who  is  bored  by  death 
and  the  ritual  of  burial,  gabbled  away:  NowisChristrisen 
fromthedeadandhecomethefirstfruitsofthemthatsleptforsince 

Bymancamedeathhymancamealso 

Theresurrectionofthedead.  .  .  . 

"It  means  breaking  up  everything,"  Gilbert  still  pro- 
tested. 

"Things  are  always  breaking  up,"  said  Eoger. 

"I  suppose  so,"  Gilbert  replied. 

Henry  had  not  taken  part  in  the  conversation,  but  had 
Iain  back  in  his  chair,  with  his  hands  clasped  behind  his 
head,  lazily  listening  to  what  they  were  saying. 

"I  don't  think  I'd  like  to  go  on  living  here,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "particularly  if  Roger  and  Ninian  go  away.  Per- 
haps we  could  share  a  flat  or  something,  Gilbert?" 

"That's  a  notion,"  Gilbert  answered. 

"There's  no  reason  why  the  Improved  Tories  should 
collapse  just  because  I'm  going  to  get  married,"  Roger 
asserted.  "This  house  really  isn't  the  most  convenient 
place  to  meet.  We  might  hire  a  room  in  a  hotel  near  the 
Strand  and  meet  there.  ..." 


7 

The  house  was  let  unfurnished.    The  incoming  tenant 
was  willing  to  take  on  the  remainder  of  their  lease  and  con- 


CHANGING  WINDS  373 

tinue  in  occupation  of  the  house  after  its  expiry,  but  he 
had  furniture  of  his  own,  and  so  he  had  no  use  for  theirs. 
Roger  took  his  furniture  to  a  small  house  in  Hampstead, 
and  offered  to  buy  most  of  what  was  left,  but  they  would 
not  listen  to  his  proposals.  "We'll  give  it  to  you  as  a 
wedding  present,"  they  insisted.  "If  there's  anything 
you  don't  want,  we'll  sell  it!"  Magnolia  was  presented 
with  a  couple  of  months'  wages  and  a  new  dress,  and  bid- 
den to  get  another  home  as  soon  as  she  could  conveniently 
do  so  .  .  .  and  then  the  house  was  abandoned. 

"It's  funny,"  said  Gilbert,  as  they  shut  the  door  be- 
hind them  for  the  last  time,  "it's  funny  that  we  hardly 
ever  thought  of  that  old  woman,  and  yet,  the  minute  she 
dies,  we  sort  of  go  to  pieces.  We  didn't  even  know  she'd 
got  a  husband.  Her  name  was  Jennifer.  I  saw  it  on  the 
coffin  lid!  .  .  ." 

Their  arrangements  for  quitting  the  house  were  not  com- 
pleted for  a  month  after  the  burial  of  Mrs.  Clutters,  and 
before  they  finally  settled  their  affairs,  Ninian  was  told 
that  he  was  to  proceed  to  South  America  with  the  junior 
partner.  He  was  to  have  a  couple  of  months'  leave  .  .  . 
' '  I  shall  go  down  to  Boveyhayne, ' '  he  said  .  .  .  after  which 
he  would  leave  England  for  a  lengthy  while.  "And  then 
there  were  three!"  said  Gilbert,  when  Ninian  told  them 
of  his  appointment.  "Three  little  clever  boys,"  he  went 
on,  "going  up  to  fame.  One  little  clever  boy  got  married 
and  then  there  were  two !  ..." 

Until  they  could  make  some  settlement  of  their  future, 
they  decided  to  live  in  a  boarding  house  in  Russell 
Square. 

"AVe  shall  loathe  it,"  Gilbert  said,  "but  that  will  be 
good  for  us!" 


8 

And  then  Roger  and  Rachel  got  married.    They  walked 
into  a  Registrar's  office,  with   Gilbert  and  Ninian  and 


874  CHANGING  WINDS 

Henry  to  bear  them  company,  and  made  their  declarations 
of  fealty  to  each  other. 

"My  father  would  have  been  horrified,"  Roger  said  at 
luncheon  afterwards.  "If  he'd  been  alive,  Rachel,  we'd 
have  had  to  get  married  in  a  church ! ' ' 

Rachel  smiled.  "I  shouldn't  have  minded,  Roger!"  she 
answered.  "You'll  laugh,  I  know,  when  I  tell  you  that 
half-way  through  the  service  I  began  to  long  for  a  sur- 
plice and  the  Voice  that  Breathed  0  'er  Eden.  A  marriage 
in  a  church  is  a  lot  prettier  than  one  in  a  Registrar's 
office!  .  .  ." 

"If  only  the  Mayor  of  the  Borough  had  performed  the 
ceremony,"  Gilbert  lamented.  "In  his  nice  furry  red 
robes  and  cocked  hat,  joining  you  two  together  in  the  name 
of  the  Borough  of  Holbom,  he'd  have  looked  rather  jolly! 
Roger,  we  ought  to  get  the  Improved  Tories  to  consider 
the  question  of  Civil  Marriage.  We  want  more  beauty  in 
it.  Rachel,  my  dear,  I  haven't  kissed  you  yet.  I  look 
upon  myself  as  Roger's  best  man,  and  I  ought  to  kiss  you  1" 

"Very  well,  Gilbert,"  she  answered,  turning  her  face 
towards  him. 

"You've  deceived  us  all,  Rachel,"  he  said  as  he  kissed 
her.  "We'd  made  up  our  minds  to  hate  you  because  you 
were  taking  our  little  Roger  from  us,  and  at  first  we 
thought  we  were  right  to  hate  you  because  you  were  so 
aggressive  to  us,  but  you've  deceived  us.  We  don't  hate 
you.    We  like  you,  Rachel!" 

"Do  you,  Gilbert?"  She  turned  to  Ninian  and  Henry. 
"Do  you  like  me,  too?"  she  said. 

"I  shouldn't  mind  marrying  you  myself,"  Ninian  re- 
plied. 

"I  don't  see  why  Gilbert  should  get  all  the  kisses,"  said 
Henry.  "After  all,  I  more  or  less  gave  you  away,  didn't 
I?    I  was  there  anyhow!  .  .  .." 

So  she  kissed  Ninian  and  Henry  too.  Then,  a  little 
later,  Roger  and  she  went  off  to  spend  a  honeymoon  in 
Normandy. 


CHANGING  WINDS  876 

9 

"I  feel  horribly  lonely  somehow,"  said  Gilbert  to  Henry. 
Ninian,  in  a  hurry  to  catch  the  train  for  Boveyhayne  at 
Waterloo,  had  left  them  at  Charing  Cross. 

Henry  nodded  his  head. 

"This  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage  is  the  devil, 
isn't  it?"  Gilbert  went  on.  "We  ought  to  cheer  ourselves 
up,  Quinny!" 

"We  ought,  Gilbert!" 

"Let's  go  and  see  my  play.  Perhaps  that'll  make  us 
feel  merry  and  bright!  ..." 

"No,"  said  Henry.  "It  wouldn't.  It  'ud  depress  us. 
We'd  keep  thinking  of  Ninian  and  Roger.  I  think  we 
ought  to  get  drunk,  Gilbert,  very  and  incredibly 
drunk.  .  .  ." 

"I  should  feel  like  Mrs.  Clutters'  husband  if  I  did  that," 
Gilbert  answered.  "Aren't  there  any  other  forms  of  de- 
bauchery? Couldn't  we  go  to  a  music-hall  or  a  picture- 
palace  or  something?  Or  we  might  discuss  our  fu- 
ture! .  .  ." 

"I'm  sick  of  this  boarding  house  we're  in,"  Henry 
exclaimed. 

"So  am  I,  but  I  don't  feel  like  setting  up  house  again. 
I'm  certain  you'd  go  and  get  married  the  moment  we'd 
settled  into  a  place.  ..." 

"I'm  not  a  marrying  man,  Gilbert,"  Henry  interrupted. 

"Well,  what  are  you,  Quinny?" 

"I  don't  know!" 

They  were  wandering  aimlessly  along  the  streets.  They 
had  drifted  along  Regent  Street,  and  then  had  drifted 

Iinto  Oxford  Street,  and  were  going  slowly  in  the  direction 
of  Marble  Arch. 
"Quinny!"  said  Gilbert  after  a  while. 
"Yes?"  Henry  answered. 
"Have  you  .  .  .  have  you  seen  Cecily  since  you  came 
back?" 
I 


S16  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Yes.    Twice!" 

Gilbert  did  not  ask  the  question  which  was  on  the  tip 
of  his  tongue,  but  Henry  was  willing  to  give  the  answer 
without  being  asked. 

"She  didn't  appear  to  know  I'd  been  away,"  he  said. 

"She  knew  all  the  same!  ..." 

*  *  She  just  said,  *  Hilloa,  Paddy ! '  and  went  on  talking  to 
the  other  people  who  were  there  too.  I  tried  to  outstay 
them,  but  Jiraphy  came  in  the  first  time,  and  there  was  a 
painter  there  the  second  time,  who  wouldn't  budge.  He's 
painting  her  portrait.    I've  not  seen  her  since.  ..." 

"You're  glad,  aren't  you,  that  I  kidnapped  you, 
Quinny?" 

"  In  a  way,  yes ! ' ' 

"You  got  on  with  your  book,  anyhow.  You'd  never 
have  done  that  if  you'd  stayed  in  town,  trailing  after 
Cecily!" 

"I  can't  quite  make  you  out,  Gilbert,"  Henry  said,  turn- 
ing to  his  friend.     "Are  you  in  love  with  Cecily?" 

Gilbert  nodded  his  head.  "Of  course,  I  am,  but  what's 
the  good?  Cecily  doesn't  love  me  any  more  than  she 
loves  you.  She  doesn't  love  any  man  particularly.  She's 
.  .  .  just  an  Appetite.  You  and  I  are  no  more  to  her 
than  .  .  .  than  the  caramel  she  ate  last  Tuesday.  The 
only  hope  for  us  is  that  we  shall  grow  out  of  this  caramel 
state  or  at  all  events  get  the  upper  hand  of  it.  .  .  .  In  the 
meantime,  what  are  we  going  to  do  ? " 

"Work,  I  suppose.  'Turbulence'  is  nearly  finished,  and 
I'm  itching  to  get  on  with  a  new  story  I've  thought  of. 
I'm  calling  it  'The  Wayward  Man.'  ..." 

"We  might  go  into  the  country.  ..." 

"Or  hire  a  furnished  flat  for  a  while.  ..." 

"Or  do  something.  .  .  .  Lordy  God,  Quinny,  we're  get- 
ting frightfully  vague  and  loose-endy.  We  really  must 
pull  ourselves  together.  There's  a  bun-shop  somewhere 
about.    Suppose  we  have  tea?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  877 


10 


They  took  a  furnished  flat  in  Buckingham  Street,  and 
lived  there  while  Henry  completed  "Turbulence"  and  saw 
it  through  the  press.  Gilbert  had  finished  another  comedy 
soon  after  the  production  of  "The  Magic  Casement,"  and 
Sir  Geoffrey  Mundane  had  asked  for  a  first  option  on  it. 
"The  Magic  Casement"  was  not  a  great  popular  success, 
but  it  "paid  its  way,"  as  Sir  Geoffrey  said.  It  was  per- 
formed for  a  hundred  and  twenty  times  in  England,  and 
for  three  weeks  in  America,  where  it  failed  lamentably. 
"I  never  did  think  much  of  a  republic!"  Gilbert  said 
when  he  heard  of  the  play's  failure. 

Eoger  and  Rachel  had  settled  in  their  house  in  Hamp- 
stead  soon  after  Gilbert  and  Henry  had  taken  the  fur- 
nished flat,  and  after  a  while,  some  of  the  old  routine  of 
their  lives,  except  that  part  of  it  represented  by  Ninian, 
went  on  as  before.  Most  of  Ninian 's  leave  was  spent  in 
quelling  his  mother's  alarms  about  his  journey  to  South 
America.  "It's  a  splendid  chance  for  me,  mother!"  he 
insisted.    "It's  jolly  decent  of  old  Hare  to  give  it  to  me!" 

"But  it's  so  far  away,  Ninian,  dear,  and  if  anything 
were  to  happen  to  you!  ..." 

"Nothing '11  happen  to  me,  mother  .  .  .  nothing  serious 
anyhow.  Heaps  of  chaps  go  off  to  places  like  that  without 
turning  a  hair!" 

"But  I've  only  got  you,  Ninian!"  Mrs.  Graham  ob- 
jected. 

"You've  got  Mary,  too,  and  I  shall  come  back  to  you!" 

One  evening,  as  they  walked  along  the  road  that  leads  to 
Sidmouth,  she  put  her  arm  in  his,  and  drew  him  near  to 
her. 

"Ninian,  dear,"  she  said  very  softly  and  hesitatingly 
as  if  she  were  afraid  to  say  all  that  was  in  her  mind. 

"Yes,  mother!" 

"Ninian,  I  sometimes  wish  ..." 

Again  she  hesitated,  and  again  he  said,  "Yes,  mother?" 


378  CHANGING  WINDS 

Her  speech  took  another  direction.  "There  have  been 
Grahams  at  Boveyhayue  for  four  hundred  years,  dear,  and 
there's  only  you  left  now." 

He  looked  at  her  uncomprehendingly.  "Well, 
mother!  ..." 

"My  dear,  we  can't  let  it  go  away  from  us.  It's  us, 
and  we're  it,  and  if  anything  were  to  happen  to  you,  and 
a  stranger  were  to  come  here!" 

"But,  my  dear  mother,"  he  interrupted,  "nothing's 
going  to  happen  to  me,  and  no  one's  going  to  get  Bovey- 
hayne  away  from  us.    Why  should  any  one  ?  .  .  . " 

She  put  her  free  hand  on  his  sleeve.  "When  Roger 
married  Rachel,"  she  said,  "I  wished  ...  I  wished  that 
you  were  Roger,  Ninian!" 

"You  want  me  to  get  married,  mother?" 

She  did  not  answer,  but  her  clasp  on  his  arm  tightened. 

"A  chap  can't  marry  a  girl  just  for  the  sake  of  getting 
married,  mother!  ..." 

"No,  dear,  I  know,  but  ..." 

"I've  not  seen  a  girl  yet  that  I  wanted  particularly. 
You  see,  I've  been  awfully  busy  at  my  job!  ...  I  know 
how  you  feel,  mother,  about  Boveyhayne,  and  I  feel  like 
that  myself  sometimes.  I  used  to  think  it  was  rather  rot 
all  this  talk  about  Family  and  keeping  on  and  .  .  .  and 
that  kind  of  thing,  but  I  can't  help  feeling  proud  of  .  .  . 
of  all  those  old  chaps  who  went  before  me,  and  ...  all 
that,  and  I'd  hate  to  break  the  line  .  .  .  only  I  can't  just 
go  up  to  a  girl  and  .  .  .  and  say,  *We  want  some  .  .  .  some 
babies  in  our  house ! '  .  .  . " 

"No,  dear,  you  can't  say  that,  of  course,  but  there  are 
plenty  of  nice  girls  about,  and  if  you  would  just  .  .  .  just 
think  of  some  of  them,  instead  of  always  thinking  of  works 
and  tunnels  and  things!  ...  Of  course,  I  know  that  tun- 
nels are  very  interesting,  Ninian,  but  .  .  .  but  Bovey- 
hayne! ..." 

She  did  not  say  any  more.  She  stood  by  the  gate  of  a 
field,  looking  over  the  valley  of  the  Axe  to  the  hilly  country 


CHANGING  WINDS  879 

that  separates  Dorset  from  Devon,  seeing  nothing  because 
her  eyes  were  full  of  tears.     He  slipped  his  arm  from  hers 
and  put  it  round  her  waist  and  drew  her  close  to  him. 
"All  right,  mother!"  he  said. 
"My  dear!"  she  said,  reaching  up  and  kissing  him. 

11 

They  dined  together  on  Ninian's  last  night  in  England. 
Kachel,  with  fine  understanding,  insisted  that  they  should 
dine  alone,  although  they  urged  her  to  join  them. 

"I  say,  you  chaps,"  Ninian  said  to  them,  "you  might 
go  and  see  my  mater  sometimes.  She'd  he  awfully  glad. 
Quinny,  you  haven't  been  to  Boveyhajme  for  centuries. 
...  If  you'd  go,  now  and  then,  you'd  cheer  the  mater 
up.     She's  awfully  down  in  the  mouth  about  me  going!" 

"Righto,  Ninian!"  said  Gilbert. 

"Mary  was  saying  what  a  long  time  it  was  since  you 
were  there,  Quinny,"  Ninian  went  on. 

"Did  she?"  Henry  answered. 

"Yes.    I  hope  you'll  go  down  sometime." 

"I  wUl,"  he  said. 


THE  SECOND  CHAPTER 

1 

Mrs.  Graham  invited  Gilbert  and  Henry  to  spend  Christ- 
mas at  Boveyhayne,  and  they  gladly  accepted  her  invita- 
tion, but  a  week  before  they  were  due  to  go  to  Devonshire, 
Mr.  Quinn  fell  ill,  and  Henry,  alarmed  by  the  reports 
which  were  sent  to  him  by  Hannah,  wrote  to  Mrs.  Graham 
to  say  that  he  must  travel  to  Ireland  at  once.  He  hurried 
home  to  Ballymartin,  and  found  that  his  father  was  more 
ill  even  than  Hannah  had  hinted. 

"I  wouldn't  have  let  her  send  for  you,  Henry!"  he 
said,  apologetically,  "only  I  was  afraid  ...  I  mightn't 
see  you  again!" 

He  tried  to  cheer  his  father  by  protesting  that  in  a  little 
while  he  would  be  astride  his  horse  again,  directing  the 
farm  experiments  as  vigorously  as  ever,  but  Mr.  Quinn 
shook  his  head.  '*I  don't  think  so,  Henry!"  he  said. 
"I'll  not  be  fit  for  much  anyway.  You'll  have  to  lend  a 
hand  with  the  estate,  my  son." 

"I'll  help  all  I  can,  father,  but  I'm  not  much  of  an 
agriculturist!  ..." 

"Well,  you  can't  be  everything.  That  new  book  of 
yours  .  .  .  the  one  you  sent  me  the  other  day!  ..." 

"  'Turbulence,'  father?" 

"Aye.  It's  a  gran'  book,  that.  I'd  like  well  to  be 
able  to  write  a  book  of  that  sort.  I'm  proud  of  you, 
Henry!" 

Henry  blushed  and  turned  away  shyly,  for  direct  praise 
always  embarrassed  him,  but  he  was  very  pleased  with  his 

880 


CHANGING  WINDS  881 

father's  praises  which  gave  him  greater  pleasure  than  the 
praises  of  any  one  else,  even  Gilbert. 

"You'll  stay  home  a  while,  now  you're  here,  Henry, 
son,  won't  you?" 

"Yes,  father,  as  long  as  you  like!" 

"That's  right.  You'll  be  able  to  work  away  here  in 
peace  and  quietness.  Nobody '11  disturb  you.  I  suppose 
you're  started  on  another  book?" 

Henry  told  him  of  "The  Wayward  Man."  .  .  . 

"That's  a  great  title,"  he  said.  "You're  a  gran'  one 
at  gettin'  good  titles  for  your  books,  Henry.  I  was  readin' 
a  bit  in  the  paper  about  you  the  other  day,  an'  I  near 
wrote  to  the  man  an'  told  him  you  were  my  son,  I  was  that 
pleased.  Ease  this  pillow  under  my  head,  will  you? 
Thanks,  boy!" 

He  took  Henry's  hand  in  his.  "I'm  right  an'  glad  to 
have  you  home  again,"  he  said,  smiling  at  him.  "Right 
an'  glad!" 


The  whole  of  "The  Wayward  Man"  was  completed  be- 
fore Mr.  Quinn  was  well  enough  to  move  about  easily. 
Henry  spent  the  morning  and  part  of  the  Eiftemoon  on  his 
novel,  giving  the  rest  of  the  day  to  his  father.  Sometimes, 
in  his  walks,  Henry  met  young  farmers  and  labourers  re- 
turning from  the  Orange  Hall  where  they  had  been  doing 
such  drill  as  can  be  done  indoors.  On  Saturday  after- 
noons, they  would  set  off  to  join  other  companies  of  the 
Ulster  Volunteer  Force  in  a  route  march.  Jamesey  Mc- 
Keown  had  begun  to  learn  wireless  telegraphy  and  was 
already  expert  with  flag-signals  and  the  heliograph.  Peter 
Logan,  who  had  married  Sheila  Morgan,  had  been  pro- 
moted to  be  a  sergeant.  ...  "I  suppose  Sheila's  a  nurse?" 
Henry  said  to  him  the  first  time  he  met  him. 

"She's  nursin'  a  wean,  Mr.  Henry!"  Logan  replied, 


382  CHANGING  WINDS 

winking  heavily.  ** We've  a  couple  already,  an'  there'll 
be  another  afore  long.  She's  as  punctual  as  the  clock, 
Sheila.    She's  a  great  woman  for  fine,  healthy  childher!" 

"Well,  that's  what  you  want,  isn't  it?"  Henry  said. 

"Aye,  you're  right,  sir.  You  are,  indeed.  There's 
nothin'  til  beat  a  lot  of  young  childher  about  the  house. 
Will  you  come  an'  see  the  drill?  ..." 

Henry  went  to  see  a  display  in  a  field  just  outside  Bally- 
martin.  The  men  marched  and  counter-marched,  and 
charged  and  skirmished,  and  did  physical  drill  until  they 
were  tired  and  sweating,  while  their  women  looked  on  in 
pride  and  pleasure.  Sheila  was  there,  too,  and  Henry 
went  to  her  and  sat  beside  her  while  the  military  man- 
oeuvres took  place.  She  made  no  impression  on  him  now 
...  he  saw  her  simply  as  a  countrywoman  in  the  family 
way  ...  a  little  blowsy  and  dishevelled  and  red  with 
exertion. 

"For  dear  sake,  Henry!"  she  said  in  greeting,  holding 
out  her  hand  to  him. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "when  does  the  war  begin?" 

"Aw,  now,"  she  answered,  "don't  ask  me!  Sure,  I'm 
never  done  coddin'  Peter  about  it.  But  it's  the  grand 
health,  Henry.  You'd  never  believe  the  differs  it's  made 
to  that  wee  lad,  Gebbie,  that  serves  in  Dobbin's  shop.  I 
declare  to  my  God,  he  had  a  back  as  roun'  as  a  hoop  'til 
they  started  these  Volunteers,  but  now  he's  like  a  ramrod. 
He's  a  marvel,  that  lad!  Teeshie  Halpin's  taken  a  notion 
of  him  since  he  straightened  up,  an'  as  sure  as  you're 
living  she'll  have  him  the  minute  they  can  scrape  a  few 
ha'pence  thegether  to  buy  a  wheen  of  furniture.  Well,  if 
the  Volunteers  never  does  no  more  nor  that,  they'll  have 
done  well,  for  dear  knows,  Andy  Gebbie  was  an  affront  to 
the  Almighty,  an'  him  stoopin'  that  way!" 

"But  are  they  going  to  fight,  Sheila?  ..." 

"Ah,  get  away  with  you,  man!"  said  Sheila.  "What 
in  the  name  of  all  that's  good  an'  gracious,  would  they  be 
fightin'  for?     Sure,  they're  lettin'  on,  to  frighten  the  Eng- 


CHANGING  WINDS  883 

lish  out  of  their  wits!"  She  changed  the  talk  to  more 
interesting  discourse.     "I've  two  childher  now,"  she  said. 

*'So  Peter  was  telling  me,"  he  answered. 

* '  A  wee  boy  an '  a  wee  girl.  An '  terrible  wee  tories  they 
are,  too!  They're  about  somewhere  with  their  aunt  Kate. 
An'  how  an'  all  are  you,  Henry?" 

'•I'm  very  well,  Sheila." 

"You're  lookin'  gran'.  I  hear  you  write  books,  but  I 
never  read  noan  of  them ! ' ' 

"Would  you  like  to  read  them?"  he  asked. 

"I  would,  fine.  Dear,  oh,  I  often  wonder  how  anybody 
can  write  books.  I  never  was  no  hand  at  writin'  any- 
thing, not  even  a  letter.  But  I  suppose  there 's  a  knack  in 
it,  an'  once  you  learn  it,  you're  all  right!" 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "that's  about  it.  I'll  send  my  books 
to  you.  I'd  have  sent  them  before  if  I'd  thought  you'd 
care  to  read  them ! ' ' 

"You  might  'a'  knowed  rightly,  I'd  be  glad  to  have 
them.  .  .  ." 


But  Sheila's  good-natured  scorn  for  the  Ulster  Volunteer 
Force  did  not  convince  Henry.  One  could  not  look  at  these 
drilling  men,  and  feel  satisfied  that  they  were  pretending 
to  be  angry  or  that  they  did  not  mean  what  they  said,  when 
they  declared  that  they  would  die  in  the  last  ditch  rather 
than  consent  to  be  governed  by  Nationalists.  Mr.  Quinn 
spent  much  time  in  denouncing  Sir  Edward  Carson  and 
his  friends,  but  he  did  not  doubt  for  a  moment  that  the 
followers  would  fight.  He  had  very  little  faith  in  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  politicians.  "That  fellow,  F.  E.  Smith,"  he 
exclaimed  wrathfully,  "what  in  hell  is  he  doin'  over  here, 
I'd  like  to  know?  I'd  like  to  kick  his  backside  for  him,  an' 
pack  him  back  to  wherever  he  come  from!"  And  there 
was  F.  E.  Robinson,  too,  bounding  about  Ulster  like  a 
well-polished  young  gentleman  from  the  Gaiety  chorus, 


384  CHANGING  WINDS 

and  delivering  historical  orations  that  filled  the  crowd  with 
amazement. 

"He's  the  great  cod,  that  lad!"  Mr.  Quinn  said.  "He's 
worse  nor  Smith.  He  come  down  here  to  Ballymartin,  an' 
he  made  a  speech  all  about  King  James's  foreign  policy, 
and  mentioned  a  whole  lot  of  people  that  the  Or'ngemen 
never  heard  tell  of.  It  would  'a'  done  well  for  a  lecture 
at  the  Queen's  College  .  .  .  you  should  'a'  seen  the  men 
nudgin'  one  another,  an'  askin'  who  he  was,  an'  what  in  the 
name  of  God  he  was  talkin'  about !  'Why  doesn't  he  curse 
the  Pope  an'  'a'  done  wi'  it!'  one  fellow  said  to  another. 
*  That  lad  curse  anybody ! '  says  the  other  one.  *  Sure,  he  'd 
near  boak  ^  himself  if  he  done  the  like  of  that ! '  Aye, 
there's  a  lot  of  bletherin'  about  the  Volunteers,  but  all  the 
same  I  don't  like  the  look  o'  things,  an'  if  they're  not  care- 
ful there  '11  be  bother.  It  '11  take  the  men  at  the  top  all  their 
time  to  hold  the  bottom  ones  down.  It  ought  never  to 
have  been  allowed  to  begin  with.  The  minute  they  started 
their  drillin'  an'  palaver,  they  ought  to  'a'  been  stopped. 
Have  you  seen  John  Marsh  lately,  Henry?" 

*'I  saw  him  when  I  was  in  Dublin  a  few  months  ago 
with  Gilbert  Farlow.    He's  drilling,  too!  .  .  ." 

"It's  fearful,  that's  what  it  is.  Fightin'  an'  wranglin' 
like  that!  I  wish  I  could  get  him  up  here  a  while.  I'd 
talk  to  him,  an'  try  an'  put  some  sense  into  him.  Do  you 
think  would  he  come  if  I  was  to  ask  him?" 

* '  I  daresay,  father.     Shall  I  write  to  him  for  you  ? '  * 

"Aye,  do,  Henry.  I  like  that  fellow  quaren  well,  an' 
I'd  be  sorry  if  any  harm  come  to  him.  He's  the  sort  gets 
into  any  bother  that 's  about !  Write  to  him  now,  will  you, 
an'  you'll  catch  the  evenin'  mail!" 

Henry  got  writing  materials  and  wrote  the  letter  in 
his  father's  room.  "Will  that  do?"  he  said,  passing  it 
to  Mr.  Quinn  for  inspection. 

"That'll  do  fine,"  Mr.  Quinn  replied,  when  he  had 
finished  reading  it.  "Matier'll  take  it  to  the  letter- 
box!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  886 

"I  don't  know  what  the  world's  comin'  to,"  he  went  on, 
a  little  fractiously.  "There's  a  fellow  wouldn't  harm  a 
fly,  drillin'  and  gettin'  ready  to  shoot  people.  An'  Irish 
people,  too!  One  lot  of  Irishmen  wantin'  to  shoot  another 
lot!  .  .  .  They're  out  of  their  minds,  that's  what's  wrong 
wi'  them.  There's  Matier  .  .  .  you'd  think  at  his  age,  he'd 
have  more  sense,  but  nothin'll  do  him  but  he  must  be  off 
of  an  evenin'  formin'  fours.  And  what  for?  I'd  like  to 
know.  I  says  to  him,  'William  Henry,  who  do  you  want 
to  kill?'  'The  Home  Rulers  an'  the  Papishes!'  says  he. 
'Quit,  man,'  says  I,  'an'  talk  sense.'  *I  am  talkin'  sense,' 
says  he.  'You're  not,'  I  says  to  him.  'D'you  mean  to 
Stan'  there  an'  tell  me  you  want  to  kill  Hugh  Kearney?' 
'I  do  not  indeed,'  says  he.  'What  put  that  notion  in  your 
head?'  'Isn't  he  a  Catholic  an'  a  Home  Ruler?'  says  I. 
I  had  him  properly  when  I  said  that,  for  him  an'  Hugh 
Kearney  is  like  brothers  to  one  another.  'Would  you  kill 
him?'  I  says  to  Matier.  'No,  sir,  I  wouldn't,'  he  answers 
me  back.  'I'd  shed  me  heart's  blood  for  him!'  And  he 
would,  too!  ...  I've  always  been  against  Home  Rule, 
Henry,  an'  you  know  well  why,  but  I'm  more  against  this 
sort  of  thing  than  I  am  against  that,  and  anyway  I'm 
not  so  sure  it  wouldn't  be  better  in  the  long  run.  There's 
too  much  Socialism  in  England,  an'  we  have  to  put 
up  with  the  results  of  it  because  of  the  Union.  The  So- 
cialists get  this  law  an'  that  law  passed,  an'  we  have 
to  suffer  it  in  Ireland  because  we're  tied  up  to  Eng- 
land. .  .  ." 


John  Marsh  came  to  Ballymartin.  Henry  had  sent  a 
private  note  to  him,  urging  him  to  accept  his  father's 
invitation.  "He's  very  ill,"  he  wrote,  "and  he  would  like 
to  see  you.  I'm  afraid  he  may  noi  get  better,  although 
there's  a  chance.  .  .  ." 


386  CHANGING  WINDS 

"There  you  are,  John  Marsh!"  Mr,  Quinn  said  to  him, 
as  he  entered  the  bedroom.  "An'  what  damned  nonsense 
are  you  up  to  now,  will  you  tell  me?" 

John  smiled  at  him.  "You're  to  get  well  at  once,"  he 
answered.  "We  can't  have  you  lying  ill  at  a  time  like 
this!" 

"An'  aren't  you  an'  the  like  of  you  enough  to  make  any 
man  ill?  Come  here  to  me,  an'  let  me  have  a  look  at  you. 
I  can't  see  you  rightly  in  that  light.  .  .  .  You're  lookin' 
pale  on  it,  John.    What  ails  you  ? ' ' 

"I'm  tired,  that's  all.  I  shall  be  all  right  in  the  morn- 
ing. .  .  ." 

"You're  workin'  yourself  to  death !  That's  what  you're 
doin'.  Sit  down  there  by  the  side  of  the  bed  till  I  talk  to 
you!" 

John  drew  a  chair  up  to  the  old  man's  bedside,  and  sat 
down  on  it  as  he  had  been  bidden.  Henry,  anxious  lest 
his  father  should  overtax  his  strength,  sat  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed. 

"An'  what  are  you  drillin'  for?"  Mr.  Quinn  demanded 
of  John. 

"We  must  defend  ourselves,  Mr.  Quinn.  ..." 

"Defend  me  granny!  An'  who's  goin'  to  harm  you?" 
Henry  made  a  motion  as  if  he  would  quieten  his  father, 
but  the  old  man  shook  him  off.  "Leave  me  alone,  Henry," 
he  said,  "an'  let  me  have  my  say!"  He  turned  again  to 
John  Marsh.  "Isn't  there  the  English  Army  to  defend 
you  if  anybody  tries  to  injure  you?  What  call  have  you 
to  start  another  lot  of  damned  volunteers  to  be  makin'  ill- 
feelin'  in  the  country  for?" 

"We  must  be  prepared  to  defend  ourselves,"  John  in- 
sisted.   "We  can't  trust  the  English.  ..." 

And  so  they  wrangled  until  Mr.  Quinn,  too  tired  to  con- 
tinue, sent  Henry  and  Marsh  from  his  room. 

"Take  him  away  an'  talk  to  him,  Henry!"  he  said. 
"He'll  not  be  happy  'til  he's  in  bother,  that  lad.  Away  on 
with  you,  John!  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  881 


It  was  while  John  Marsh  was  at  Ballymartin,  that  the 
mutiny  at  the  Curragh  Camp  took  place.  The  soldiers 
had  been  ordered  to  Ulster  to  maintain  order  .  .  .  and 
their  officers  had  refused  to  go. 

"I  thought  you  said  we  could  depend  on  the  English 
Army,"  John  exclaimed  to  Mr.  Quinn  in  very  excited 
tones.  "This  looks  like  it,  doesn't  it?  If  they'd  been 
ordered  to  march  on  us,  they'd  have  done  it  quick  enough. 
That's  why  we're  drilling,  Mr.  Quinn.  We've  got  to  de- 
fend ourselves.  Supposing  the  Ulster  Volunteers  attack 
us!  ..." 

"They  won't,"  Mr.  Quinn  snapped  at  him. 

"But  supposing  they  do,  are  we  to  sit  down  and  let 
them  do  it?  I  tell  you  we  daren't  trust  to  the  English. 
They'll  promise  everything  and  give  nothing.  That's  the 
nature  of  them.     They  're  a  treacherous  race !  .  .  . " 

"I  wish  to  my  God  you  had  some  sense,  John  Marsh," 
said  Mr.  Quinn, 

"Oh,  I  know  you  think  I'm  a  madman,  but  you  can't 
deny  facts,  and  the  facts  are  that  the  English  have  sys- 
tematically betrayed  the  Irish  throughout  their  history. 
If  there's  a  war  on,  they  go  down  on  their  hands  and 
knees  and  ask  us  to  win  it  for  them  .  .  .  they  offer  us  the 
sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars  for  our  help  .  .  .  but  the 
minute  they've  got  over  their  fright,  they  start  plotting 
to  get  out  of  their  promises.  They've  done  it  before  and 
they'll  do  it  again.  I  want  our  Volunteers  to  be  more 
than  a  defensive  organisation.  I  want  them  to  be  an 
offensive  organisation.  If  we  don't  look  out  very  sharply 
we'll  find  that  the  English  have  ruined  Ireland  again. 
They've  started  to  do  it  openly  now.  You've  heard, 
haven't  you,  about  the  Cunard  Line  and  Queenstown  ?...*' 
It  appeared  that  the  Cunard  Line  had  abandoned  Queens- 
town  as  a  port  o^  call  fo;*  American  liners,  .  .  .  That  means 
absolute   ruin   for   Queenstown!  .  .  .  Casement    tried    to 


388  CHANGING  WINDS 

get  the  Hamburg-Amerika  line  to  send  their  boats  in- 
stead, and  they'd  agreed  to  do  so  .  .  .  all  the  prepara- 
tions were  made  to  welcome  the  first  of  their  boats  .  .  .  and 
then  the  scheme  was  abandoned  by  the  Germans.  The 
English  Foreign  office  got  at  them!  .  .  .  Oh,  of  course,  it's 
only  Ireland,  and  Irish  people  and  Irish  interests  can  be 
neglected  and  ruined  without  a  blush  so  long  as  the  Eng- 
lish interests  are  safe.  .  .  .  More  and  more  I'm  convinced 
that  we've  got  to  separate  from  them.  They're  a  com- 
mon-minded people.  You  know  they  are!  They're  huck- 
sters .  .  .  they  think  in  ...  in  ha'porths!  ..." 


The  attempt  to  bring  John  Marsh  to  reason  was  a  failure, 
and  he  went  back  to  Dublin  more  resolved  to  make  the 
Volunteers  an  offensive  body  than  he  had  been  when  he 
arrived.  He  had  seen  a  review  of  the  Ulster  Volunteer 
Force  in  Belfast  and  the  setness  of  the  men  impressed  him. 
"They'll  fight  all  right,"  he  said.  "I  don't  suppose  their 
leaders  have  any  stomach  for  fighting,  but  the  men  have 
plenty.    By  God,  I  wish  they  were  on  our  side!" 

"Well,  why  don't  you  try  to  get  them  on  your  side?" 
Henry  demanded.  "Your  notion  of  conciliating  them  is  to 
start  getting  ready  to  fight  them!" 

"We  have  tried  to  conciliate  them,"  Marsh  replied. 
"When  Carson  formed  his  Provisional  Government,  some 
of  us  asked  him  to  extend  it  to  the  whole  of  Ireland.  Do 
you  think  we  wouldn  't  rather  have  Carson  than  Redmond  ? 
He's  got  some  stuff  in  him  anyhow,  but  Redmond!  .  .  ." 

He  made  a  gesture  of  contempt.  "I've  no  use,"  he  said, 
"for  a  man  who  looks  so  like  Napoleon  without  being  Napo- 
leon!" 

"But  Carson  wouldn't,'^  he  went  on.  "It's  all  very 
well  to  say  'Conciliate  Ulster!'  but  Ulster  won't  let  us  con- 
ciliate her.  The  Ulster  people  have  nothing  but  contempt 
for  us,  and  they  ram  Belfast  down  our  throats  until  we're 


CHANGING  WINDS  889 

sick  of  it.  And  a  lot  of  their  prosperity  is  just  good  luck 
and  .  .  .  and  favour.  They've  been  well  looked  after  by 
the  English,  and  they're  near  everything  .  .  .  coalfields 
and  Lancashire.  Do  you  think  if  Galway  was  where  Bel- 
fast is,  it  wouldn't  be  as  prosperous?  If  they're  so  al- 
mighty clever  as  they  say  they  are,  why  don't  they  come 
and  lead  us,  instead  of  clinging  on  to  England  like  a  pam- 
pered kid?  .  .  ." 

Henry  listened  patiently  to  John.  There  must,  he 
thought,  be  some  powerful  motive  for  so  much  passion. 
He  had  come  to  look  upon  nationality  as  a  contemptible 
thing,  a  fretful  preoccupation  with  little  affairs,  but  when 
he  faced  the  fury  of  John  Marsh,  he  could  not  deny  that 
this  passion,  whether  it  be  little  or  big,  will  bring  the  world 
to  broils  until  it  be  satisfied.  He  did  not  now  feel  that 
irritation  which  he  had  formerly  felt  when  John  derided 
the  English  or  called  them  by  opprobrious  names.  He  could 
make  allowances  for  the  anger  of  the  dispossessed.  "That 
kind  of  talk, ' '  he  thought,  * '  kills  itself.  Marsh  has  only  to 
let  himself  go  along  enough,  and  he'll  let  himself  go  alto- 
gether.   He'll  exhaust  his  abuse.  ..." 

He  remembered  that  when  Gilbert  and  he  had  arrived 
in  Dublin  after  their  flight  from  London,  they  had  tried 
to  discover  just  what  Marsh  and  his  friends  meant  to  do 
with  Ireland  when  they  had  gained  control  of  the  country 
.  .  .  but  Marsh  and  his  friends  had  no  plans.  They  talked 
vaguely  of  the  national  spirit  and  of  self-government,  but 
they  could  not  be  induced  to  name  a  specific  reform  to 
which  they  would  set  their  minds.  Some  one  had  given  a 
copy  of  Dale's  Report  of  Irish  Elementary  Education  to 
Henry,  and  he  had  read  it  with  something  like  horror.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  here  was  the  whole  Irish  problem,  that 
when  this  was  solved,  everything  was  solved  .  .  .  but  when 
he  spoke  of  it  to  Marsh  and  his  friends  he  found  that 
most  of  them  had  never  heard  of  Dale's  Report,  were 
scarcely  aware  of  the  fact  that  there  was  an  Irish  educa- 
tion  problem.    "We'll   deal   with  that  after  we've   got 


590  CHANGING  WINDS 

Home  Rule,"  they  would  say,  waving  their  hands  in  the 
airy  fashion  in  which  futile  people  always  wave  their  hands. 
And  so  it  was  with  everything  else.  They  would  deal  with 
that  after  they  had  got  Home  Rule.  Gilbert  and  Henry 
had  explored  the  Combe  and  the  dreadful  swamp  of  slums 
reaching  up  from  Ringsend  and  spilling  almost  into  the 
gardens  of  Merrion  Square.  .  .  . 

"But  don't  they  know  about  this?"  Gilbert  asked  in 
amazement.  **I  mean,  haven't  they  any  eyes  ...  or 
noses?" 

"They'll  deal  with  that  after  they've  got  Home  Rule," 
Henry  answered  miserably. 

They  had  gone  back  to  their  lodgings  in  a  state  of  deep 
depression.  Wherever  one  went  in  Dublin,  one  was  fol- 
lowed by  little  whining  children,  demanding  alms  in  the 
cadging  voice  of  the  professional  beggar,  and  many  of  them 
were  hopelessly  diseased.  .  .  . 

"I  thought  the  Irish  were  very  religious  and  moral?" 
Gilbert  said  once,  as  they  passed  a  group  of  sickly  chil- 
dren sitting  at  the  entrance  to  a  court  of  Baggot  Street. 

"Why?"  Henry  replied. 

"These  kids  are  syphilitic,"  Gilbert  answered.  "The 
place  is  full  of  sj^philis ! ' ' 

* '  Dublin  is  a  garrison  town  and  a  University  town, ' '  said 
Henry,  with  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders.  "There  are  eight 
barracks  in  Dublin  ...  it's  the  most  be-barracked  city  in 
the  Kingdom.  .  .  .  Oh,,  we're  terribly  moral,  we  Irish. 
As  moral  as  ostriches.  If  you  pick  up  a  Dublin  newspa- 
per, it's  a  million  to  one  you'll  see  a  reference  to  'the  in- 
nate purity  of  the  Irish  women,'  written  probably  by  a 
boozy  reporter.  No,  Gilbert,  you're  wrong  about  these 
kids.  They're  not  syphilitic.  .  .  .  Good  Lord,  no!  That's 
English  misgovernment.  Wait  'til  they've  got  Home  Rule 
.  .  .  and  those  kids  won't  be  syphilitic  any  more!  ..." 

They  had  met  a  man  at  Ernest  Harper's  who  wore  the 
kilt  of  the  Gael,  and  had  listened  to  him  while  he  bleated 
about  the  beautiful  purity  of  the  Irish  women.    He  was 


CHANGING  WINDS  891 

a  convert  to  Catholicism  and  Nationalism  and  anti-Eng- 
lishism, and  he  had  the  appearance  of  a  nicely-brought-up 
saint.  "He  looks  as  if  he  had  just  committed  a  miracle, 
and  is  afraid  he  may  do  it  again!"  Gilbert  whispered  to 
Henry.  This  man  purred  at  them.  "The  priests  have 
kept  Ireland  pure,"  he  murmured.  "Many  harsh  things 
have  been  said  about  them,  but  no  one  has  ever  denied  that 
they  have  kept  Ireland  pure ! ' ' 

"I  do, "  said  Henry,  full  of  desire  to  shock  the  Celt. 

"You  do?  ,  .  ." 

"Anybody  can  keep  a  man  pure  by  putting  him  in 
prison.  That's  what  the  priests  have  done.  They've  put 
the  Irish  people  in  gaol!  ..." 

The  kilted  Celt  shrank  away  from  him.  He  was  sorry, 
but  he  could  not  possibly  sit  still  and  listen  to  such  con- 
versation. He  hoped  that  he  was  as  broad-minded  as  any 
one,  but  there  were  limits.  .  .  .  Very  wisely,  he  thought, 
the  Church !  .  .  . 

* '  Blast  the  Church ! ' '  said  Henry,  and  the  kilted  Celt  had 
gone  shivering  away  from  him. 

"That  kind  of  person  makes  me  foam  at  the  mouth," 
Henry  muttered  to  Gilbert.  "The  Irish  people  aren't  any 
purer  than  any  other  race.  It's  all  bunkum,  this  talk 
about  their  'innate  purity.'  If  you  clap  the  population 
into  gaol,  you  can  keep  them  'pure,'  in  act  anyhow,  and 
if  the  priests  won't  let  the  sexes  mingle  openly,  they  can 
get  up  a  spurious  purity  just  like  that.  If  a  girl  gets 
into  trouble  in  Ireland,  she  goes  to  the  priest  and  con- 
fesses, and  the  priest  takes  jolly  good  care  that  the  man 
marries  her.  That's  why  the  rate  of  illegitimacy  is  so  low. 
And  anyhow,  the  bulk  of  the  people  are  agricultural,  and 
country  people  are  more  continent  than  any  other  people. 
It's  the  same  in  England,  but  the  English  don't  go  about 
bleating  of  their  'innate  purity.'  I  tell  you,  Gilbert,  the 
trouble  with  this  country  is  self-consciousness.  ..." 

"Home  Rule  ought  to  cure  that!"  said  Gilbert. 

"That's  why  I'm  a  Home  Ruler,"  Henry  replied.     "If 


392  CHANGING  WINDS 

you  chaff  these  people,  they  get  angry  and  want  to  fight. 
If  anybody  were  to  get  up  in  a  public  hall  and  say  about 
the  Irish  one-quarter  of  the  things  that  Bernard  Shaw  says 
in  public  about  the  English,  the  audience  would  flay  him 
alive  and  wreck  the  building.  They're  too  little  to- stand 
chaff  easily.  It  takes  a  big  people  to  bear  criticism  good- 
naturedly.  .  .  .  All  the  same,  Gilbert,  your  damned  coun- 
trymen are  to  blame  for  all  this!" 

*'I  know  that,"  said  Gilbert,  ''but  your  damned  coun- 
trymen seem  determined  to  remain  like  it!" 

8 

Mr.  Quinn  and  Henry  had  talked  of  Ireland  and  of  John 
Marsh,  after  John  had  returned  to  Dublin. 

"Sometimes,"  said  Mr.  Quinn,  "I  think  that  the  best 
thing  for  Ireland  would  be  to  let  the  two  sides  fight.  That 
might  bring  them  together.  One  damned  good  scrap  .  .  . 
and  they  might  shake  hands  and  become  reconciled.  There 
was  as  much  antagonism  and  bitterness  between  the  North 
and  South  in  America  as  there  is  between  the  North  and 
South  in  Ireland  .  .  .  and  on  the  whole,  I  think  the  Civil 
War  did  a  lot  of  good ! ' ' 

"It's  a  damned  queer  country,  Henry!"  he  went  on, 
lying  down  and  drawing  the  bedclothes  up  about  his  neck. 
"Damned  queer!" 

"I  suppose  they  all  know  what  they're  up  to,"  he  con- 
tinued, looking  intently  at  the  ceiling.    '  *  But  I  don 't ! " 

"Are  you  comfortable,  father?"  Henry  asked,  bending 
anxiously  over  Mr.  Quinn  who  had  a  grey,  tired  look  on 
his  face. 

"Yes,  thank  you,  Henry,  I'm  ...  I'm  comfortable 
enough!"  He  turned  his  head  slightly  and  gazed  at 
Henry  for  a  few  moments  without  speaking.  Then  he 
smiled  at  him.  "I  tried  hard  to  make  an  Irishman  out  of 
you,  Henry,"  he  said. 

"I  am  an  Irishman,  father!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  393 

''Aye,  but  a  very  Irishman.  Many's  a  time  I  wonder 
what  you  are.  What  are  you,  Henry?  You're  not  Eng- 
lish an'  you're  not  Irish.    What  are  you?" 

"I  don't  know,  father.  I'm  very  Irish  when  I'm  in 
England,  and  I'm  very  English  when  I'm  here!" 

"That's  no  good,  Henry.  All  you  do  is  to  make  both 
sides  angry.    You  should  be  something  all  the  time ! ' ' 

"I  try  to  be  fair,"  said  Henry. 

"That'll  not  lead  you  very  far.  Well,  well,  the  world's 
the  world,  and  there 's  an  end  of  it ! " 


Sitting  in  the  garden  that  evening,  looking  towards  the 
hazy  hills,  Henry  wondered,  too,  what  he  was.  Indeed, 
he  told  himself,  he  loved  Ireland,  but  then  he  loved  Eng- 
land, also.  Once,  when  he  was  in  Trinity,  he  had  trudged 
up  into  the  mountains,  and  had  sat  on  a  stone  and  gazed 
down  on  the  city  and,  beyond  it,  to  the  sea,  and  while  he 
had  sat  there,  a  great  love  of  his  country  had  come  into  his 
heart,  and  he  had  found  himself  irrationally  loving  the 
earth  about  him,  just  because  it  was  Irish  earth.  He 
had  tried  to  check  this  love  which  was  conquering  him, 
and  he  had  scraped  up  a  handful  of  earth  and  rubbed 
his  fingers  in  it.  "Soil,"  he  had  murmured  aloud. 
*  *  Just  soil  .  .  .  like  any  other  soil ! ' '  and  then,  suddenly, 
overpoweringly,  irresistibly,  something  had  quickened 
in  him,  and  while  he  was  murmuring  that  the  earth  he 
had  scraped  up  was  "just  soil,"  he  had  raised  it  to  his  lips 
and  had  kissed  it.  .  .  .  And  as  quickly  as  the  impulse  to 
kiss  the  earth  came  to  him,  came  also  revulsion.  "That 
was  a  sloppy  thing  to  do, ' '  he  said  to  himself,  and  he  flung 
the  earth  away  from  him. 

He  had  stayed  there  until  the  evening,  lulled  by  the  warm 
wind  that  blew  about  the  mountains,  and  soothed  by  the 
soft,  kindly  smell  of  burning  turf.  There  was  an  odour  of 
smouldering  furze  near  by,  and  the  air  was  full  of  pleas- 


394  CHANGING  WINDS 

ant  sounds :  the  rattle  of  carts,  the  call  of  a  man  to  a  dog, 
the  whinnying  of  horses  and  the  deep  lowing  of  cows. 
He  turned  on  his  side  and  looked  seawards.  The  sun  had 
set  in  a  great  field  of  golden  cloud,  throwing  splashes  of 
light  down  the  sides  of  the  mountains  and  turning  little 
rain-pools  into  pools  of  fire ;  but  now  the  dusk  was  settling 
down,  and  as  Henry  looked  towards  the  sea,  he  saw  lights 
shining  out  of  the  houses,  making  warm  and  comforting 
signals  in  the  dark.  Dublin  lay  curled  about  the  Bay,  cov- 
ered by  smoke  that  was  pierced  here  and  there  by  the  chim- 
ney-stacks of  factories.  There,  beneath  him,  were  little 
rocking  lights  on  the  boats  and  ships  that  lay  in  Kings- 
town Harbour  or  drifted  up  and  down  the  Irish  Sea,  and 
over  there,  across  the  Bay,  the  great  high  hump  of  Howth 
thrust  itself  upwards.  A  tired  ship  sailed  slowly  up  to  the 
city,  trailing  a  long  line  of  white  foam  behind  her.  .  .  . 
He  stood  up  and  looked  about  him;  and  again  the  love  of 
Ireland  came  into  his  heart,  and  this  time  he  did  not  try 
to  check  it.  He  yielded  to  it,  giving  himself  up  to  it  com- 
pletely. ... 

"You  can't  help  it,"  he  murmured  to  himself.  "You 
simply  can't  help  it!  .  .  ." 

But  he  loved  England,  too.  There  had  been  nights  when 
he  had  loved  London  as  a  man  might  love  his  mother  .  .  . 
when  the  curve  of  the  Thames,  and  the  dark  shine  of  its 
water  against  the  arches  of  "Waterloo  Bridge,  and  the  bulg- 
ing dome  of  St.  Paul's  rising  proudly  out  of  the  haze  and 
smoke,  and  the  view  of  the  little  humpy  hills  at  Harrow  that 
was  seen  from  the  Hampstead  Heath  .  .  .  when  all  these 
became  like  living  things  that  loved  him  and  were  loved  by 
him.  Once,  with  Gilbert,  he  had  wandered  over  Romney 
Marsh,  from  Ilythe  to  Rye,  and  had  felt  that  Kent  and  Sus- 
sex were  as  close  to  him  as  Antrim  and  Down.  And  Devon- 
shire, from  north  and  south,  was  friendly  and  native  to 
him.  He  had  tramped  about  Exraoor  and  had  seen  the 
red  deer  running  swiftly  from  the  hunt,  and  had  climbed  a 
bare  scarp  of  Dartmoor,  startling  the  wild  ponies  so  that 


CHANGING  WINDS  395 

they  ran  off  with  their  long  tails  flying  in  the  air,  scat- 
tering the  flocks  of  sheep  in  their  flight.  The  very  names  of 
the  Devonshire  rivers  were  like  homely  music  to  him,  and 
he  would  say  the  names  over  to  himself  for  the  pleasure  of 
their  sound :  Taw  and  Tamar  and  Torridge,  the  Teign  and 
the  Dart  and  the  Exe,  and  the  rivers  about  Boveyhayne, 
the  Sid  and  the  Otter,  the  Coly,  the  Axe  and  the 
Yarty.  .  .  . 

"I'm  not  de-nationalised,"  he  insisted.  "I  love  Ireland 
and  England.  I'm  part  of  them  and  they  are  part  of  me, 
and  we  shall  never  be  separate.  ..." 

10 

He  had  stayed  at  Ballymartin  until  he  had  completed 
"The  Wayward  Man."  Ilis  father's  health  had  varied 
greatly,  but  soon  after  the  publication  of  the  new  novel, 
it  mended  and,  although  he  did  not  recover  his  old  strength 
and  vigour,  he  was  well  enough  to  move  about  and  superin- 
tend the  work  on  his  farm. 

"You  can  go  back  to  London  now,  Henry!"  he  said  to 
his  son  one  morning,  after  breakfast.  "I  know  you're 
just  itchin'  to  get  back  there,  an'  I'm  sure  I'm  sick,  sore 
an '  tired  of  the  sight  of  you.  Away  off  with  you,  now ! ' ' 
And  Henry,  protesting  that  he  did  not  wish  to  go,  had 
gone  to  London.  Gilbert's  second  comedy,  "Sylvia,"  had 
been  produced  by  Sir  Geoffrey  Mundane  and,  like  "The 
Magic  Casement,"  had  achieved  a  fair  amount  of  success. 
"But  I  haven't  done  anything  big  yet,"  Gilbert  com- 
plained to  Henry.  "My  aim's  better  than  it  was,  but  I'm 
still  missing  the  point.  Perhaps  the  next  one  will  hit 
it.  .  .  ." 

In  London,  Henry  began  "The  Fennels,"  but  after  he 
had  written  a  couple  of  chapters,  he  found  himself  unable 
to  proceed  with  it. 

"I  must  go  back  to  Ireland,"  he  said  to  Gilbert.  "I 
want  the  feel  of  Ulster.    I  can 't  get  it  into  this  book  unless 


396  CHANGING  WINDS 

I'm  there,  somehow!"  And  so,  sooner  than  he  had  antici- 
pated, he  returned  to  Ballymartin,  where  "The  Fennels" 
was  finished,  and  there  he  stayed  until  Gilbert  wrote  and 
asked  him  to  join  him  at  Tre'Arrdur  Bay. 

"You  can't  get  much  nearer  to  Ireland  than  that," 
he  wrote:  "You  hop  into  the  boat  at  Kingstown  and  hop 
out  of  it  again  at  Holyhead  and  there  you  are!  .  .  ." 

"I  shall  be  back  again  in  a  month,  father!"  he  had 
said  to  Mr.  Quinn,  and  then  he  had  taken  train  to  Bel- 
fast, where  he  was  to  change  for  Dublin  and  thence  go  to 
Wales. 

In  Belfast,  there  was  great  excitement  because  the  Ulster 
Volunteers  had  successfully  landed  a  cargo  of  guns  that 
were  purchased  in  Germany.  The  Volunteers  had  seized 
the  coastguard  stations  at  Larne  and  at  Donaghadee  and 
Bangor,  overawing  the  police,  and  there  had  been  much 
jocularity.  It  was  all  done  in  excellent  taste.  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  death  of  a  coastguard  through  heart  failure, 
there  would  have  been  nothing  to  mar  the  jolly  entertain- 
ment. .  .  . 


11 

"I  suppose  John  Marsh  was  sick  about  the  gun-running 
in  Ulster  ? ' '  said  Gilbert  to  Henry,  as  they  approached  the 
hotel  at  Tre'Arrdur  Bay  at  which  they  were  to  stay. 

"No,  I  don't  think  so.  He  seemed  to  think  it  was  rather 
fine  of  the  Ulstermen  to  do  it.  You  see,  it's  put  the  Gov- 
ernment in  a  hole,  and  that  pleases  him.  He  was  very 
mysterious  in  his  talk,  and  full  of  hints!  ..." 

"Are  they  going  to  run  guns,  too?"  Gilbert  asked. 

"I  shouldn't  be  surprised,"  said  Henry.  "One  of 
these  days  a  gun '11  go  off,  and  then  they'll  stop  playing 
the  fool,  I  suppose!" 


THE  THIRD  CHAPTER 


"Roger's  getting  all  his  facts  in  fine  trim  for  the  book 
on  a  National  Army,"  Gilbert  said  after  lunch.  **The 
thing's  been  much  bigger  than  any  of  us  imagined,  but 
Roger's  a  sticker,  and  he's  got  a  lot  done!" 

"I'd  nearly  forgotten  about  that  business,"  Henry  re- 
plied. 

"Roger  hasn't  forgotten.  He's  been  spending  a  great 
deal  of  time  in  Bermondsey  lately,  and  I  shouldn't  be 
surprised  if  the  local  Tories  adopt  him  as  their  candidate 
at  the  next  election.  I  don't  suppose  he'll  get  in.  It'll 
be  a  pity  if  he  doesn  't.  Rachel 's  making  it  easier  for  him. 
Roger  says  she's  popular  with  the  girls  in  the  jam  fac- 
tories .  .  .  and  of  course  that's  very  useful.  You  see, 
Rachel  tells  the  girls  to  tell  their  mothers  to  tell  their 
fathers  to  vote  for  Roger  when  the  time  comes,  and  the 
fathers '11  have  to  do  it  or  they'll  get  a  hell  of  a  time 
from  their  women.  I  can  tell  you,  Quinny,  Rachel  knows 
what's  what.  She's  going  to  ask  some  of  the  jam-girls 
out  to  tea  and  show  them  the  baby!  ..." 

"Good  old  British  Slop,  Gilbert!  Do  you  remember 
how  we  swore  that  we  would  never  have  anything  to  do 
with  Slop?  .  .  ." 

"We've  had  a  lot  to  do  with  it.  Roger  was  right.  The 
Slop  is  there  and  you've  got  to  make  allowances  for  it,  and 
after  all,  why  shouldn't  Rachel  show  her  baby  to  the 
girls?  Damn  it  all,  a  baby  is  a  remarkable  thing,  when 
you  come  to  think  of  it.  All  that  wriggle  and  bubble  and 
squeak  and  kick  .  .  .  and  Lord  only  knows  what '11  come 

397 


398  CHANGING  WINDS 

out  of  it!  We  ought  to  get  married,  Quinny,  and  father 
a  few  brats.  My  own  notion  is  to  get  hold  of  a  nice, 
large,  healthy  female  of  the  working-class  and  set  her  up 
in  a  very  ugly  house  in  a  very  ugly  suburb,  near  a  mu- 
nicipal park,  and  give  her  three  pounds  a  week  for  herself, 
and  an  allowance  for  every  child  she  produces.  I  could 
have  all  the  pride  and  pleasure  of  parenthood  without 
the  boredom  and  nuisance  of  being  a  husband,  and  the 
youngsters  would  probably  be  young  giants.  The  girl 
wouldn't  mind  how  many  she  had,  and  she'd  feed  'em 
herself.  There 'd  be  no  damned  bottle  and  no  damned  lim- 
itation. And  I'd  put  all  the  boys  in  the  Navy,  and  I'd 
make  cooks  out  of  the  girls  .  .  .  cooks,  Quinny,  not  food- 
murderers,  and  I'd  call  the  first  boy  IMichael  John,  and 
the  second  boy  Patrick  James  and  the  third  boy  Peter 
William  and  the  fourth  boy  Roger  Henry  Gilbert  Ni- 
nian.  .  .  ." 

"And  what  would  you  call  the  girls?" 

"Wait  a  minute!  I  haven't  done  with  the  boys  yet. 
And  I'd  call  the  fifth  boy  Matthew.  I'd  call  the  first  girl 
Margaret,  and  the  second  girl  Bridget,  and  the  third  girl 
Rachel,  and  the  fourth  girl  Mary,  and  I'm  damned  if  I 
know  what  I'd  call  the  fifth  girl,  so  I'd  let  her  mother 
choose  her  name.  And  they'd  all  know  how  to  swim,  and 
manage  a  boat,  and  box,  and  whistle  with  two  fingers  in 
their  mouths,  and  the  girls'  chief  ambition  would  be  to 
get  married  and  have  babies.  They'd  have  a  competition 
to  see  who  could  have  the  most.  And  their  husbands  would 
all  be  big,  hearty  men.  Margaret  would  marry  a  black- 
smith, and  Bridget  'ud  marry  a  fisherman,  and  Rachel  'ud 
marry  a  farmer,  and  Mary'd  marry  a  soldier  and  the 
other  one  would  marry  a  sailor.  ]\Iary's  man  'ud  be  a 
sergeant-major,  a  fat  sergeant-major,  and  the  other  one's 
'ud  be  a  boatswain  or  a  chief  gunner.  I'd  have  so 
many  grandchildren  that  I'd  never  be  able  to  remember 
which  were  mine  and  which  belonged  to  the  man  next 
door!  .  .  ." 


CHANGING  WINDS  399 

"You'd  want  a  great  deal  of  money  for  that  lot,  Gil- 
bert!" 

"I  suppose  I  would.  But  I  think  that  men  of  quality 
ought  to  have  children  by  strong,  healthy  women  of  the 
working-class.  I  think  there's  a  lot  to  be  said  for  the 
right  of  the  lord,  don 't  you  ?  It  was  good  for  the  race  .  .  . 
kept  up  the  quality  of  the  breed!  I  shall  have  to  think 
seriously  about  this.  ..." 

"You'd  better  look  out  for  a  farmer's  daughter  while 
you're  here,"  Henry  suggested. 

"What!  A  Welshwoman!  Good  God,  no!!  My  good- 
ness, Quinny,  you  ought  to  bring  that  fellow,  John  Marsh, 
to  Wales  for  a  few  months.  That  'ud  cure  him  of  his 
Slop  about  nationality.  I  came  to  Wales,  determined  to 
like  the  Welsh,  and  I've  failed.  That's  all.  I've  failed 
hopelessly.  I  told  myself  that  it  was  absurd  to  believe  that 
a  whole  nation  could  be  as  bad  as  English  people  say  the 
Welsh  are  .  .  .  but  it  isn't  absurd  ...  of  the  Welsh 
anyhow.  They're  all  that  everybody  says  they  are,  only 
about  ten  times  worse.  I've  been  all  over  this  country 
one  time  and  another,  and  they're  simply  .  .  .  mean. 
They  're  a  dying  race,  thank  heaven !  They  've  kept  them- 
selves to  themselves  so  much  that  their  blood  is  like  water, 
and  so  they're  simply  perishing.  They  wouldn't  absorb 
or  be  absorbed  .  .  .  and  so  they're  just  dying  out.  Your 
lot  were  wiser  than  the  Welsh,  Quinny ! ' ' 

"The  Irish?" 

"Yes.  They  absorbed  all  the  new  blood  they  could  get 
into  their  veins,  and  so,  whoever  else  may  perish,  the 
Irish  won't.  This  nationality  business  is  all  my  eye, 
Quinny.  You  don't  want  one  strain  in  a  country.  You 
want  hundreds  of  strains.  You  want  to  mingle  the  bloods. 
...  I  don't  believe  there's  a  pure-blooded  Irishman  in 
Ireland  or  out  of  it.  .  .  .  Oh,  the  Welsh!  Oh,  the  awful 
Welsh !  Inbreeding  in  a  nation  is  the  very  devil  .  .  .  and 
it  makes  'em  so  damned  uncivil.  Oh,  a  shifty,  whining 
race,  the  Welsh!  ..." 


400  CHANGING  WINDS 


There  are  many  bays  on  that  coast,  and  in  one  of  these, 
where  they  could  easily  get  to  deep  water,  they  bathed 
every  morning,  drying  themselves  in  the  sun  when  they 
were  tired  of  swimming.  They  would  haul  themselves  out 
of  the  sea  by  clutching  at  the  long  tassels  of  sea-weed,  and 
then  lie  down  on  the  bare,  warm  rocks  while  the  sun  dried 
the  salt  into  their  skins.  Once,  while  they  were  lying  in 
this  fashion,  Gilbert  turned  to  Henry  and  said,  * '  Have  you 
been  to  Boveyhayne  at  all  since  Ninian  went  away?" 

"No,"  Henry  answered.  **I  was  to  have  gone  with  you 
that  Christmas,  but  my  father's  illness  prevented  me,  and 
I  haven't  been  since." 

"Why  don't  you  go?  They'd  be  glad  to  see  you,  and 
Ninian 'd  like  it." 

"I  must  go  one  of  these  days.  How  is  Mrs.  Graham? 
I  suppose  you've  seen  her  lately?" 

"She  was  all  right  when  I  saw  her.  Mary's  rather 
nice!" 

Henry  did  not  say  anything,  and  Gilbert,  having  waited 
for  a  while,  went  on. 

"I  always  thought  you  and  Mary.  ..." 

He  broke  off  suddenly  and  sat  up.  "It's  getting  a  bit 
chilly,"  he  said.    "I  think  I'll  dress!" 

"There's  no  hurry,  Gilbert,"  Henry  answered.  "You 
didn't  finish  what  you  were  saying." 

"It's  none  of  my  business.    I've  no  right  to.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  have,  Gilbert,"  Henry  interrupted,  sitting 
up  too.    "Go  on!" 

"Well,  I  always  thought  that  you  and  Mary  were  .  .  . 
well,  liked  each  other.  That  was  why  I  was  so  puzzled 
when  you  got  fond  of  Cecily.  I  felt  certain  that  you'd 
marry  Mary.  Why  don't  you,  Quinny?  She's  an  awfully 
nice  girl,  and  you  and  she  are  rather  good  pals,  aren't 
you?" 

"I  don't  know,  Gilbert.    I  think  I  love  Mary  better 


I 


CHANGING  WINDS  401 

than  any  one  I've  ever  met,  and  yet  I  seem  to  lose  touch 
with  her  very  easily!" 

"Oh,  I  shouldn't  count  Cecily.  Cecily  is  anybody's 
sweetheart!  ..." 

"But  it  wasn't  only  Cecily.  There  was  a  girl  ...  a 
farm-girl  in  Antrim.  I  never  told  you  about  her.  Her 
name  was  Sheila  Morgan  .  .  .  she's  married  now  .  .  .  and 
I  went  straight  from  Mar^^  to  her.  Of  course,  I  was  a  kid 
then,  but  still  I'd  told  Mary  I  was  fond  of  her,  and  we'd 
arranged  to  get  married  when  we  grew  up  .  .  .  and  then 
I  went  home  and  made  love  to  Sheila  Morgan ! ' ' 

' '  None  of  these  women  held  you,  Quinny ! ' '  said  Gilbert. 

"No,  that's  true,  and  Mary  has,  although  I  seldom  see 
her.  I  thought  that  I  could  never  love  anybody  as  I 
loved  Sheila  JMorgan  .  .  .  until  I  met  Cecily  .  .  .  and 
then  I  thought  I  should  never  love  any  one  as  I  loved  her 
.  .  .  but  somehow  Cecily  doesn't  hold  me  now,  and  Mary 
does.  I  can't  tell  you  when  I  ceased  to  love  Cecily  .  .  . 
I  don't  really  know  that  I  have  ceased  to  love  her  ...  it 
just  weakened,  so  gradually  that  I  did  not  notice  it  weak- 
ening. All  the  same,  if  I  were  to  see  Cecily  now,  I  should 
probably  want  her  as  badly  as  ever." 

"You  might,  Quinny,  but  you  wouldn't  go  on  wanting 
her.  You  see,  she  wouldn't  want  you  for  very  long,  and 
my  general  opinion  is  that  you  can't  keep  on  giving  if  you 
get  nothing  in  return  .  .  .  unless,  of  course,  you're  a  one- 
eyed  ass.  A  healthy,  intelligent  man,  if  he  loves  a  woman 
who  doesn't  love  him  .  .  .  well  he  goes  off  and  loves  some 
one  else  .  .  .  and  quite  right,  too.  These  devoted  fellows 
who  cherish  their  blighted  affections  forever  .  .  .  damn  it, 
they  deserve  it.  They've  got  no  imagination!  I  don't 
think  Cecily 'd  hold  you  now,  Quinny,  not  for  very  long 
anyhow.  I  wish  you'd  marry  Mary.  You  quite  obviously 
love  her,  and  she  quite  obviously  loves  you.  .  .  .  Oh,  Lordy 
God,  I  wish  I  could  love  somebody.  I  wish  I  were  a  young 
man  in  a  novelette,  with  a  nice,  clear-cut  face  and  crisp, 
curly  hair  and  frightfully  gentlemanly  ways  and  no  brains 


402  CHANGING  WINDS 

so  that  I  could  get  into  the  most  idiotic  messes.  .  .  .  Why 
aren't  there  any  aphrodisiacs  for  men  who  cannot  love 
any  one  in  particular,  Quinny !  If  you  'd  had  the  sense  to 
have  a  sister,  I  should  probably  have  married  her.  Roger's 
family  runs  to  nothing  but  males,  and  Rachel  can't  hon- 
estly recommend  any  of  her  female  relatives  to  me.  If  I 
thought  Mary'd  have  me,  I'd  marry  her,  but  I  know  she 
wouldn't.  I  used  to  think  it  was  awful  to  want  to  believe 
in  God  and  not  be  able  to  believe  in  Him,  but  it's  a  lot 
worse  to  want  to  love  and  not  be  able  to  love.  I  shall  have 
to  marry  an  actress.    That's  all!" 

They  dressed  in  the  shelter  of  the  rocks,  and  then  went 
back  to  the  hotel  to  lunch. 

"I'd  like  to  marry  Mary!  ..."  Henry  began. 

"Why  don't  you,  then?"  Gilbert  interrupted. 

"Because  I  feel  that  I  must  go  to  her  absolutely  un- 
divided, Gilbert.  Do  you  know  what  I  mean?  I  want  to 
be  able  to  go  to  her,  knowing  that  no  other  woman  can 
sway  me  from  her  for  a  second.  It  would  be  horrible  to 
be  married  to  her  and  feel  something  lurking  inside  me, 
just  waiting  for  a  chance  to  spring  out  and  .  .  .  and  make 
love  to  some  one  else!" 

"You've  changed  a  lot,  Quinny,  since  the  days  when 
you  pleaded  for  infinite  variety.  You  wanted  a  wife  for 
every  mood!  .  .  ." 

Henry  laughed.  "We  did  talk  a  lot  of  rot  when  we 
first  went  to  London,"  he  said,  putting  his  arm  in  Gil- 
bert's. 

"It  wasn't  all  rot.  My  contributions  to  the  discussion 
were  very  sensible.  I  wonder  what's  the  excitement  up 
there!    The  papers  are  in!  .  .  ." 

There  was  a  group  of  visitors  sitting  on  the  seats  in 
front  of  the  hotel  and  they  were  reading  the  newspapers 
which  had  just  been  sent  out  from  Holyhead. 

"Let's  go  and  ask,"  Henry  exclaimed,  and  they  both 
went  on  more  quickly. 


CHANGING  WINDS  403 

**Any  news?"  Gilbert  shouted  as  they  mounted  the  steps 
leading  from  the  carriage-way  to  the  terrace. 

"Yes.     Bad  news  from  Ireland,"  a  visitor  answered. 

"From  Ireland!"  Henry  said. 

"Yes.  The  Nationalists  landed  some  guns  at 
Howth!  ..." 

"Yes,  yes!"  Henry  said  excitedly. 

"And  there  was  a  scrap  between  the  people  and  sol- 
diers! .  .  ." 

"The  soldiers!" 

The  visitor  nodded  his  head.  "Some  damned  ass,"  he 
said,  "had  ordered  the  soldiers  out,  and  .  .  .  well,  there 
was  a  row.  The  crowd  stoned  the  soldiers  .  .  .  and  sol- 
diers are  human  like  anybody  else  .  .  .  they  fired  on  the 
crowd!  .  .  ." 

"Fired  on  them?" 

"Yes.  Several  people  were  killed.  It's  a  bad  business, 
a  damned  bad  business!  ..." 


There  was  an  unreasonable  fury  in  Henry's  heart.  "It's 
a  clever  joke  when  the  Ulster  people  do  it,"  he  said,  rag- 
ing at  Gilbert.  "And  everybody  agrees  to  look  the  other 
way,  but  it's  a  crime  when  the  Nationalists  do  it,  and  it 
can  only  be  punished  by  ...  by  shooting.  I  suppose  it's 
absolutely  impossible  for  the  English  to  get  any  under- 
standing into  their  thick  heads!  ..." 

"Don't  be  an  old  ass,  Henry.  You're  not  going,  to  im- 
prove a  rotten  bad  business  by  hitting  about  indiscrim- 
inately. I  daresay  the  people  who  were  responsible  for  the 
thing  were  Irishmen.  I've  always  noticed  that  when  any- 
thing really  dirty  is  done  in  Ireland,  it's  an  Irishman  who 
does  it.  .  .  ." 

"A  rotten  Unionist!  ..." 

"Irish,  all  the  same!    The  only  thing  that  you  Irish 


404  CHANGING  WINDS 

are  united  about  is  your  habit  of  blaming  the  English  for 
your  own  faults  and  misbehaviour.  If  I  had  the  fellow 
who  was  responsible  for  this  business  I'd  shoot  him  out  of 
hand.  I  wouldn't  think  twice  about  it.  If  a  man  is  such 
an  ass  as  all  that,  he  ought  to  be  put  out  of  the  world 
quick.  But  then  I'm  English.  The  Irish '11  make  a  case  out 
of  him.  They'll  orate  over  him,  and  they'll  get  fright- 
fully cross  for  a  fortnight,  and  then  they'll  do  nothing. 
You  know  as  well  as  I  do,  Quinny,  that  the  English  aren't 
unfriendly  to  the  Irish,  that  they  really  are  anxious  to  do 
the  decent  thing  by  Ireland.  It  isn't  us:  it's  you.  We're 
not  against  you  .  .  .  you're  against  yourselves.  There  are 
about  seventy-five  different  parties  in  Ireland,  aren't  there, 
and  they  all  hate  each  other  like  poison?" 

"I  wonder  if  John  Marsh  was  hurt!  ..." 

**I  don't  suppose  so.  There 'd  have  been  some  refer- 
ence to  him  in  the  paper  if  he'd  been  hurt." 

"This  was  what  he  was  hinting  at  when  I  saw  him  in 
Dublin,"  Henry  went  on.  "He  talked  about  'doubling 
it'  and  said  that  two  could  play  at  that  game!" 

He  was  calmer  now,  and  able  to  talk  about  the  Dublin 
shooting  with  some  discrimination. 

"I  don't  know  why  they  want  to  'run'  guns  at  all,"  he 
said.  "The  tit-for-tat  style  of  politics  seems  a  fairly  fool- 
ish one.  ...  I  think  I  shall  go  back  to  Ireland  to-morrow, 
Gilbert.  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  to  be  there.  This  business 
won't  end  where  it  is  now.  I  know  what  John  Marsh  and 
Galway  and  Mineely  are  like.  Whatever  bitterness  was  in 
them  before  will  be  increased  enormously  by  this.  Mi- 
neely's  an  Ulsterman,  and  he'll  make  somebody  pay  for 
this.  He  doesn't  say  much  .  .  .he's  like  Connolly  .  .  . 
Connolly's  the  brains  behind  Larkin  .  .  .  but  he  keeps 
things  inside  him,  deep  down,  but  safe,  so  that  he  can 
always  get  at  them  when  he  wants  them!" 

"What  sort  of  man  is  he,  Quinny?"  Gilbert  asked.  "I 
didn't  see  him  when  we  were  in  Dublin." 

"He  looks  like  a  comfortable  tradesman,   and  he's  a 


CHANGING  WINDS  i05 

kindly  sort  of  chap.  You'd  never  dream  that  he  was  an 
agitator  or  that  he'd  want  to  lead  a  rebellion,  I  don't 
believe  he  likes  that  work,  either.  I  think  that  inside  him 
his  chief  desire  is  for  a  decent  house  with  a  garden,  where 
he  can  grow  sweet  peas  and  cabbages  and  sit  in  the  evening 
with  his  wife  and  children.  He  has  more  balanced  knowl- 
edge than  most  of  the  people  he  works  with.  Marsh  and 
Galway  have  had  a  better  education  than  Mineely,  but  they 
haven't  had  his  experience  or  his  knowledge  of  men,  and 
so  they  can't  check  their  enthusiasm.  He  was  in  America 
for  a  long  while,  and  he 's  lived  in  England,  too.  He  wrote 
a  quite  good  book  on  the  Irish  Labour  Movement  that  would 
have  been  better  if  he'd  made  more  allowance  for  the 
nature  of  the  times.  If  the  employers  hadn't  behaved  so 
brutally  over  the  strike,  ]\Iineely  might  have  become  the 
solvent  of  a  lot  of  ill-will  in  Ireland ;  but  they  made  a  bit- 
ter man  out  of  him  then,  and  I  suppose  it's  too  late  now. 
He'll  go  on,  getting  more  and  more  bitter  until.  ...  Do 
you  remember  that  story  by  H.  G.  Wells,  Gilbert,  called 
'In  the  Days  of  the  Comet'?" 

' '  Is  that  the  green  vapour  story  ? ' ' 

"Yes.  Well,  we  want  a  green  vapour  very  badly  in 
Ireland,  something  to  obliterate  every  memory  and  leave 
us  all  with  fresh  minds!" 

"Miracle-mongering  won't  lead  you  very  far,  Quinny. 
It's  no  good  howling  for  a  vapour  to  heal  you.  You've 
just  got  to  take  your  blooming  memories  and  cure  'em  your- 
selves, by  the  sweat  of  your  brows!  And,  look  here, 
Quinny,  there  doesn't  seem  any  good  reason  why  you 
should  dash  back  to  Ireland  because  of  this  business.  I 
always  think  that  the  worst  row  in  the  world  would  never 
have  come  to  anything  if  people  hadn't  done  what  you 
propose  to  do,  rushed  into  it  just  because  they  thought 
they  ought  to  be  there.  They  congest  things  .  .  .  they 
use  up  the  air  and  make  the  place  feel  stuffy  .  .  .  and  then 
they  get  cross,  and  somebody  shoves  somebody  else,  and 
before  they  know  where  they  are,  they're  splitting  each 


406  CHANGING  WINDS 

other's  skulls.    If  they'd  only  remained  dispersed.  ..." 

"But  I'd  like  to  be  there!  .  .  ." 

"I  know  you  would.  We'd  all  like  to  be  there,  so's 
we  could  say  afterwards  we'd  seen  the  whole  thing  from 
beginning  to  end.  That's  just  why  we  shouldn't  be  there. 
It  isn't  the  principals  in  the  row  that  make  all  the  trouble, 
Quinny  ...  it's  the  blooming  spectators!  ..." 


He  let  himself  be  persuaded  by  Gilbert  to  stay  in  Wales, 
and  they  spent  the  next  two  or  three  days  in  tramping 
about  the  island  of  Anglesey.  The  days  were  bright  and 
sunny,  and  the  rich  sparkle  of  the  sea  tempted  them  fre- 
quently to  the  water.  There  were  many  visitors  at  the 
hotel,  some  of  whom  were  Irish  people  from  Dublin,  but 
mostly  they  came  from  Liverpool  and  Manchester;  and 
with  several  of  them,  Gilbert  and  Henry  became  friendly. 
There  was  a  schoolmaster  who  made  a  profession  of  moun- 
tain-climbing and  a  hobby  of  religion;  and  a  doctor  who 
told  comic  stories  and  talked  with  good  temper  about  Home 
Rule,  to  which  he  was  opposed;  and  a  splendid  old  man, 
with  his  wife,  who  was  interested  in  co-operation  and  was 
eager  to  limit  armaments;  and  a  wine  merchant  from 
Liverpool  who  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  world, 
on  the  whole,  was  quite  a  decent  place  to  live  in;  and  a 
dreadful  little  stockbroker  who  belonged  to  the  Bloody 
school  of  politicians  and  talked  about  the  Empire  as  if 
it  were  a  music-hall ;  and  an  agent  of  some  sort  from  ]\Ian- 
chester  who  had  reached  that  stage  of  prosperity  at  which 
he  was  beginning  to  wonder  whether,  after  all,  Noncon- 
formity was  not  a  grievous  heresy  and  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land a  sure  means  of  salvation.  And  there  were  others, 
vague  people  of  the  middle  class,  kindly  and  comfortable 
and  inarticulate,  with  no  particular  opinions  on  anything 
except  the  desirability  of  four  good  meals  every  day  and 
a  month's  holiday  in  the  summer.    There  were  daughters. 


CHANGING  WINDS  4in 

too  ...  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  daughters !  Some  that 
were  hearty  and  athletic,  living  either  in  the  sea  or  on  the 
golf-links;  and  others  that  were  full  of  their  sex,  unable 
to  forget  that  men  are  men  and  women  are  women,  and 
never  the  two  shall  come  together  but  there  shall  be  woo- 
ing and  marrying.  .  .  .  There  were  a  few  who  were  eager 
to  use  their  minds  .  .  .  and  they  quoted  their  parents  and 
the  morning  papers  to  Gilbert  and  Henry.  .  .  . 

Surprisingly,  their  feeling  about  the  Howth  gun-raid 
became  cool.  In  that  exquisite  sunlight,  beneath  the  wide 
reach  of  blue  sky,  it  was  impossible  to  experience  rancour 
or  maintain  anger.  They  swam  and  basked  and  swam 
again,  and  let  their  eyes  look  gladly  on  young  shapely 
girls,  running  across  the  grassy  tops  of  the  piled  rocks, 
and  were  sure  that  there  could  be  nothing  on  earth  more 
beautiful  than  the  spectacle  of  pink  arms  gleaming  through 
white  muslin,  unless  it  might  be  the  full  brown  ears  of 
wheat  now  bending  in  the  ripening  rays  of  sunshine.  .  .  . 
And  again,  after  dinner,  they  would  sit  in  a  high,  grassy 
corner  of  the  bay,  listening  to  the  lap  of  the  sea  beneath 
them,  while  the  stars  threw  their  faint  reflections  on  the 
returning  tide.  .  .  . 

Exquisite  peace  and  quiet,  long  days  of  rich  pleasure 
and  sweet  nights  of  rest,  kindliness  and  laughter  and  the 
friendly  word  of  casual  acquaintances  .  .  .  and  over  all, 
the  enduring  beauty  of  this  world. 


THE  FOURTH  CHAPTER 


Gilbert  looked  up  from  the  paper  as  Henry  came  out  of 
the  hotel. 

"I  say,  Quinny,"  he  said,  "I  think  there's  going  to  be 
a  war!" 

"A  what?"  Henry  exclaimed. 

"A  war!  .  .  ." 

"But  where?" 

Henry  sat  down  on  the  long  seat  beside  Gilbert,  and 
looked  over  his  shoulder  at  the  paper. 

"All  over  the  place!"  Gilbert  answered.  "The  Aus- 
trians  want  to  have  a  go  at  the  Serbians,  and  the  Rus- 
sians mean  to  have  one  at  the  Austrians,  and  then  the 
Germans  will  have  to  help  the  Austrians,  and  that'll  bring 
the  French  in,  and  .  .  .  and  then  I  suppose  we  shall  shove 
in  somewhere!" 

Henry  took  the  paper  from  Gilbert's  hands.  "But  what 
have  we  got  to  do  with  it?"  he  said,  hastily  scanning  the 
telegrams  with  which  the  news  columns  were  filled. 

"I  dunno!  .  .  ." 

"It's  ridiculous.  .  .  .  What's  there  to  fight  about? 
Damn  it  all,  my  novel's  coming  out  in  a  month!  What's 
it  about?" 

"You  remember  that  Archduke  chap  who  got  blown  up 
the  other  day!  ..." 

"Yes,  I  remember!" 

"Well,  that's  what  it's  about!" 

"But,  good  God,  man,  they  can't  have  a  war  about  a 
thing  like  that.  ..." 

408 


CHANGING  WINDS  409 

"It  looks  as  if  they  thought  they  could.  Anyhow, 
they're  going  to  try!"  said  Gilbert. 

"Just  because  an  Archduke  got  killed!  Damn  it,  Gil- 
bert, that's  what  they're  for!  ..." 

There  was  a  queer  look  of  fright  in  the  faces  of  the 
visitors  to  the  hotel.  The  boy  from  Holyhead  had  been 
slow  in  coming  with  the  papers,  and  the  first  news  that 
came  to  them  came  from  a  man  who  had  been  into  the 
town  that  morning. 

"There's  going  to  be  a  war,"  he  had  shouted  to  the 
group  of  people  sitting  on  the  terrace. 

' '  Don 't  be  an  ass ! "  they  had  shouted  back  at  him. 

"Yes,  there  is.  The  whole  blooming  world '11  be  scrap- 
ping presently!"  He  spoke  with  the  queer  gaiety  of  a 
man  who  has  abandoned  all  hope.  "Just  as  I  was  getting 
on  my  feet,  too!"  he  went  on.  He  suddenly  unburdened 
himself  to  a  man  who  had  only  arrived  at  the  hotel  late 
on  the  previous  evening  .  .  .  they  had  never  seen  each 
other  before  .  .  .  but  now  they  were  revealing  inti- 
macies. .  .  . 

"Just  getting  on  my  feet,"  the  man  who  had  brought 
the  news  went  on. 

"It'll  be  very  bad  for  business,  I'm  afraid!  ..." 

"Bad.  Goo'  Lor',  man,  it's  ruin  .  .  .  absolute  ruin! 
I'll  be  up  the  pole,  that's  where  I'll  be.  And  I  was  think- 
ing of  getting  married,  too.  Just  thinking  of  it,  you  know 
.  .  .  nothing  settled  or  anything  .  .  .  and  now  ...  damn 
it,  what  they  want  to  go  and  have  a  war  for?  We  don't 
want  one!" 

Then  the  boy  with  the  newspapers  appeared,  and  they 
rushed  at  him  and  tore  the  papers  from  his  bag.  .  .  . 

"By  Jove!"  they  said,  "it's  .  .  .  it's  true!" 

"I  told  you  it  was  true.  You  wouldn't  believe  me  when 
I  told  you.  You  know,  it's  a  Bit  Thick,  that's  what  it  is. 
I've  been  a  Liberal  all  my  life,  same  as  my  father  .  .  . 
and  then  this  goes  and  happens!  What  is  a  chap  to 
do?  .  .  ." 


410  CHANGING  WINDS 

He  wailed  away,  filling  the  air  with  prophecies  of  doom 
and  disaster.  They  could  hear  him,  as  he  rushed  about 
the  hotel  telling  the  news,  taking  people  into  corners  and 
informing  them  that  it  was  a  Bit  Thick.  There  was  some- 
thing pitiful  about  him  ...  he  had  climbed  to  a  com- 
fortable competence  from  a  hard  beginning  .  .  .  and  some- 
thing comical,  too,  something  that  made  them  all  wish  to 
laugh.  The  veneer  of  manners  which  he  had  acquired 
with  so  much  trouble  had  worn  off  in  a  moment,  and  the 
careful  speech,  the  rigid  insistence  on  aspirates,  so  to 
speak,  took  to  its  heels.  He  appeared  to  them  suddenly, 
carrying  an  atlas. 

** Where  the  'ell  is  Serbia  anyway?"  he  demanded.  **I 
can't  find  the  damn  place  on  the  map !" 


They  stood  about,  gaping  at  each  other,  unable  to  realise 
what  had  happened  to  them.  One  of  the  windows  of  the 
drawing-room  was  open,  and  the  subdued  buzz  of  women's 
voices  came  through  it  to  the  terrace.  Monotonously,  ex- 
asperatingly,  one  querulous  voice  sent  a  fretful  question 
through  the  bewildered  speeches  of  the  women  .  .  .  "But 
what's  it  about?  That's  what  I  want  to  know.  I've  asked 
everybody,  but  nobody  seems  to  know!"  Some  one  made 
an  inaudible  reply  to  the  querulous  voice,  and  then  it  went 
on:  ** Serbia!  That's  what  some  one  else  said,  but  we 
aren't  Serbia.  We're  England,  and  I  don't  see  what  we've 
got  to  do  with  it.  If  they  want  to  go  and  fight,  let  them. 
That's  what  I  say!  .  .  ." 

Gilbert  and  Henry  sat  in  the  middle  of  the  group  on 
the  terrace,  listening  to  what  was  being  said  about  them. 
They  had  thrown  the  newspapers  aside  .  .  .  there  was 
hysteria  in  the  headlines  .  .  .  and  were  sitting  in  a  sort 
of  stupor,  wondering  what  would  happen  next.  The  buzz- 
ing voice,  demanding  to  be  told  what  the  war  was  about. 


CHANGING  WINDS  411 

still  droned  through  the  window,  irritating  them  vaguely 
until  the  man  who  had  first  brought  the  news  got  up  from 
his  seat,  and  went  to  the  window  and  shut  it  noisily. 

*  *  Damn  'er, ' '  he  said,  as  he  came  back  to  his  seat.  '  *  'Oo 
cares  whether  she  knows  what  it's  about  or  not!  What's 
it  got  to  do  with  'er  any'ow.  She  won't  'ave  to  do  none 
of  the  fightinM" 

Fighting ! 

Henry  sat  up  and  looked  at  the  man.  Why,  of  course, 
there  would  be  fighting  .  .  .  and  perhaps  England  would 
be  drawn  into  the  war,  and  then!  .  .  . 

A  girl  came  out  of  the  hotel,  with  towels  under  her  arm, 
and  called  to  them.    '* Coming  to  bathe?"  she  said. 

They  looked  at  her  vacantly.     * '  Bathe ! ' '  said  Henry. 

"Yes.    It's  a  ripping  morning!" 

They  stood  up,  and  looked  towards  the  sea  that  was 
white  with  sunshine  .  .  .  and  then  turned  away  again.  It 
seemed  to  Henry  as  if,  down  there  by  the  rocks,  in  a 
splash  of  sunlight,  a  corpse  were  lying  .  .  .  festering.  .  .  . 
He  sat  down  again,  mechanically  picking  up  a  newspaper 
and  reading  once  more  the  telegrams  he  had  already  read 
many  times. 

"Come  along,"  the  girl  said.  "You  might  just  as  well 
bathe!" 

Gilbert  looked  up  at  her  and  smiled.  "I  was  just  won- 
dering," he  said,  "what  one  ought  to  do!" 


The  banks  had  closed,  and  there  was  an  alarm  about 
money  and  a  deeper  alarm  about  food.  ,  .  .  Panic  sud- 
denly came  upon  them,  and  in  a  short  while,  visitors  began 
to  pack  their  trunks  in  their  eagerness  to  get  home.  The 
women  felt  that  they  would  be  safer  at  home  .  .  .  they 
wanted  to  be  in  familiar  places.  "I  really  ought  to  be  at 
home  to  look  after  my  house,"  a  man  said  to  Henry. 


412  CHANGING  WINDS 

* '  They  're  a  rough  lot  in  our  town,  and  if  there 's  any  short- 
age of  food  .  .  .  they'll  loot,  of  course!  I  don't  like 
breaking  my  holiday,  but!  .  .  ." 

He  did  not  complete  his  sentence  ...  no  one  ever  com- 
pleted a  sentence  then  .  .  .  but  went  indoors,  .  .  . 

And  telegrams  came  incessantly,  telegrams  calling  people 
home,  telegrams  announcing  that  others  were  not  coming, 
telegrams  containing  information  of  the  war.  ,  .  . 

"I  suppose,"  said  Gilbert,  "if  anything  comes  of  this, 
we'll  have  to  do  something!  ..." 

"Do  something?"  Henry  murmured, 

"Yes,  I  suppose  so.  .  .  ." 

Perkins  came  to  him,  Perkins  who  had  an  agency  in  Man- 
chester. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  "I  don't  call  this  place  safe.  It's 
right  on  the  coast  .  .  .  slap-up  against  the  sea  .  .  .  and 
you  know,  if  a  German  cruiser  was  to  drop  a  shell  right  in 
the  middle  of  us,  we  'd  look  damn  silly,  I  can  tell  you ! ' ' 

"We  have  a  navy  too,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Yes,  I  know  all  about  that,  but  that  wouldn't  be  much 
consolation  to  me  if  I  was  to  get  blown  up,  would  it  ?  You 
know,  I  do  think  they  ought  to  draw  the  blinds  down  at 
night  so's  the  light  won't  show  out  at  sea.  I  mean  to  say, 
there 's  no  sense  in  running  risks,  is  there  ? ' ' 

"No  ...  no,  of  course  not!" 

"I  think  I'll  go  and  suggest  that  to  the  proprietor.  I've 
just  been  up  to  Manchester  to  see  how  things  are  going  on 
there.  Bit  excited,  of  course.  Nobody  seems  to  know  what 
to  do,  so  they  just  sit  down  and  cancel  everything.  Silly, 
I  call  it.  I  went  to  my  office  to  get  my  letters,  and  every 
blessed  one  was  cancelling  an  order.  I  mean  to  say,  that's 
no  way  to  go  on  .  .  .  losing  their  heads  like  that.  And 
you  know  they'll  need  my  stuff  later  on  .  .  .  if  we  go  in!" 

"Your  stuff?"  Henry  said. 

"Yes.     I  deal  in  black !  .  .  ." 

"Christ!"  said  Gilbert,  getting  up  and  walking  away. 


CHANGING  WINDS.  41S 

"Your  friend  seems  a  bit  upset,  doesn't  he?"  Mr.  Per- 
kins murmured  to  Henry. 


They  went  into  Holyhead,  and  wandered  aimlessly  about  * 
the  station.  Marvellously,  men  in  uniform  appeared 
everywhere.  The  reservists,  naval  and  military,  had  been 
called  up,  and  while  Gilbert  and  Henry  stood  in  the  station, 
a  large  number  of  them  went  away,  leaving  tearful,  puz- 
zled women  on  the  platform.  That  morning  the  boots  at 
the  hotel  had  been  called  up  to  join  his  Territorial  regi- 
ment. He  had  been  carrying  a  trunk  on  his  back,  when 
the  call  came  to  him,  and,  chuckling,  he  dropped  the  trunk, 
and  skipped  off  to  get  ready.  "  I  'm  wanted, ' '  he  said  .  .  . 
and  then  he  went  off. 

And  still  people  went  about,  bemused  and  frightened, 
demanding  what  it  was  about.  .  .  . 

"We'll  have  to  go  in,"  some  one  said  in  the  station.  "I 
can 't  see  how  we  can  stay  out !  .  .  . " 

' '  I  can 't  see  that  at  all, ' '  his  neighbour  replied.  '  *  We  've 
got  nothing  to  do  with  it ! " 

"If  the  Germans  won't  leave  the  Belgians  alone!  ..." 

Perkins  interrupted  again.  "We've  got  a  Belgian  cook 
in  our  hotel,"  he  said.  "It  ...  it  sort  of  brings  it  all 
home  to  you,  that!"  • 

There  were  rumours  that  the  working-people  were  reso- 
lute against  the  war.  .  .  . 

"And  so  are  the  employers,"  said  Perkins.  "I  can  tell 
you  that.    I  've  not  met  anybody  yet  who  wants  a  war ! ' ' 

And  as  the  rumours  flew  about,  they  grew.  One  could 
see  a  rumour  begin  and  swell  and  change  and  increase. 

' '  I  tell  you  what, ' '  said  Perkins.  '  *  These  Germans  have 
been  damn  well  asking  for  it,  and  I  hope  they  '11  damn  well 
get  it.  I  know  a  few  Germans  .  .  .  Manchester's  full  of 
'em  .  .  .  and  I  don't  like  'em.    As  a  nation,  I  don't  like 


414  -CHANGING  WINDS 

'em.    They  .  .  .  they  get  on  my  nerves,  that's  what  they 
do!" 

There  was  talk  about  German  organisation,  German  effi- 
ciency, German  militarism.  .  .  . 

"They  don't  think  anything  of  a  civilian  in  Germany. 
The  soldier's  everything.  And  women  ...  oh,  my  God, 
the  way  they  treat  women !  I  've  seen  German  officers  .  .  . 
I've  seen  'em  myself  .  .  .  chaps  that  are  supposed  to  be 
gentlemen  .  .  .  going  along  the  street,  and  shoving  women 
off  the  pavement!  ..." 

"You  know,"  said  Perkins,  "I  don't  really  think  much 
of  the  Germans  myself.  I  mean  to  say,  they  got  no  initia- 
tive. That's  what's  the  matter  with  'em.  Do  you  know 
what  a  German  does  when  he  wants  to  go  across  the  street  ? 
He  goes  up  to  a  policeman  and  asks  him.  And  what  does 
the  policeman  do?  Shoves  him  off  the  pavement!  ...  I'd 
break  his  jaw  for  him  if  he  shoved  me !" 

They  stayed  on,  wondering  sometimes  why  they  stayed, 
and  then  at  midnight,  a  troop  train  steamed  into  the  sta- 
tion, and  a  crowd  of  tired  soldiers  alighted  from  the  car- 
riages and  prepared  to  embark. 

"My  God,  it's  begun!"  said  Perkins.  "Where  you 
chaps  going  to  ? "  he  asked  of  a  soldier. 

"I  dunno,"  the  soldier  answered.  "Ireland,  I  think. 
I  'eard  we  was  goin'  to  put  down  these  bleedin'  Orangemen 
that's  bin  makin*  so  much  fuSS  lately,  but  some'ow  I  don't 
think  that's  it.  'Ere,  mate,"  he  added,  thrusting  a  dirty 
envelope  into  Perkins's  hand.  "That's  my  wife's  address. 
I  'adn't  time  to  write  to  'er  .  .  .  we  was  sent  off  in  a 
'urry  .  .  .  you  might  just  drop  'er  a  line,  will  you  an' 
say  I'm  off!  .  .  ." 

"Right  you  are,"  said  Perkins. 

"Tell  'er  I  think  I'm  off  to  France,  see,  on'y  I  don't 
know,  see!  There's  a  rumour  we're  goin'  to  Ireland,  but 
I  don't  think  so.  You  better  tell  'er  that.  An'  I'm  all 
right,  see.    So  far  any'ow!  ..." 

'God!"  said  Perkins,  as  the  soldiers  moved  towards  the 


CHANGING  WINDS  416 

transport,  "don't  it  make  you  feel  as  if  you  wanted  to 
cry!  .  .  ." 

In  the  morning,  they  knew  that  England  had  declared 
war  on  Germany. 

"Of  course,"  said  Gilbert,  **we  couldn't  keep  out  of  it. 
We  simply  had  to  go  in!" 

They  had  gone  down  to  the  bay  to  bathe.  "This '11  be 
my  last,"  Gilbert  muttered  as  they  stripped,  "for  a  while 
anyhow ! ' ' 

"But  you're  not  going  yet,"  Henry  said. 

*'I  think  so,"  Gilbert  replied.  "I  don't  know  how  the 
trains  are  running,  but  I  shall  try  to  get  back  to  London 
to-night." 

"But  M'hy?  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  I  expect  they'll  need  chaps.  Don't  you  think  they 
will?" 

"Do  you  mean  you're  going  to  .  .  .  enlist?" 

"Yes.  That  seems  the  obvious  thing  to  do.  They're 
sure  to  need  people,"  Gilbert  answered. 

*  *  I  suppose  so, ' '  said  Henry. 

"I  don't  quite  fancy  myself  as  a  soldier,  Quinny.  I'm 
not  what  you'd  call  a  bellicose  chap.  I  shan't  enjoy  it 
very  much,  and  I  expect  I  shall  be  damned  scared  when  it 
comes  to  ...  to  charging  and  that  sort  of  thing  .  .  .  but 
a  chap  must  do  his  share.  ..." 

"I  suppose  so,"  Henry  said  again. 

It  seemed  to  him  to  be  utterly  absurd  that  Gilbert  should 
become  a  soldier,  that  his  sensitive  mind  should  be  diverted 
from  its  proper  functions  to  the  bloody  business  of  war. 

"I've  always  jibbed  a  bit  when  I  heard  people  talking 
about  England  in  the  way  that  awful  stockbroker  in  the 
hotel  talks  about  it,"  Gilbert  was  saying,  "and  I  loathe 
the  Kipling  flag-flapper,  all  bounce  and  brag  and  bloodies 
.  .  .  but  I  feel  fond  of  England  to-day,  Quinny,  and  noth- 
ing else  seems  to  matter  much.  And  anyhow  fighting's 
such  a  filthy  job  that  it  ought  to  be  shared  by  everybody 
that  can  take  a  hand  in  it  at  all.    It  doesn't  seem  right 


416  CHANGING  WINDS 

somehow  to  do  your  fighting  by  proxy.  I  should  hate  to 
think  that  I  let  some  one  else  save  my  skin  when  I'm  per- 
fectly able  to  save  it  myself.  ..." 

"But  you've  other  work  to  do,  Gilbert,  more  important 
work  than  that.  There  are  plenty  of  people  to  do  that  job, 
but  there  aren't  many  people  to  do  yours.  Supposing  you 
went  out  and  .  .  .  and  got  .  .  .  killed?  .  .  ." 

"There's  that  risk,  of  course,"  said  Gilbert,  "but  after 
all,  I  don't  know  that  my  life  is  of  greater  value  than  an- 
other man's.  A  clerk's  life  is  of  as  much  consequence  to 
him  as  mine  is  to  me." 

"I  daresay  it  is,  Gilbert,  but  is  it  of  as  much  consequence 
to  England?  I  know  it  sounds  priggish  to  say  that,  but 
some  lives  are  of  more  value  than  others,  and  it's  silly  to 
pretend  that  they're  not." 

"I  should  have  agreed  with  you  about  that  last  week, 
Quinny.  You  remember  my  doctrine  of  aristocracy?  .  .  . 
Well,  somehow  I  don't  feel  like  that  now.  I  just  don't  feel 
like  it.  Those  chaps  we  saw  at  Holyhead,  going  off  to 
Prance  ...  I  shouldn't  like  to  put  my  plays  against  the 
life  of  any  one  of  them.  I  couldn't  help  thinking  last 
night,  while  I  was  lying  in  bed,  that  there  I  was,  snugly 
tucked  up,  and  out  there  .  .  .  somewhere!  .  .  ."  He 
pointed  out  towards  the  Irish  Sea  .  .  .  "those  chaps  were 
sailing  to  ...  to  fight  for  me.  I  felt  ashamed  of  my- 
self, and  I  don't  like  to  feel  ashamed  of  myself.  You  saw 
that  soldier  giving  his  wife's  address  to  Perkins?  Poor 
devil,  he  hadn't  had  time  to  say  'Good-bye'  to  her,  and 
perhaps  he  won't  come  back.  I  should  feel  like  a  cad  if  I 
let  myself  believe  that  my  plays  were  worth  more  than 
that  man's  life.  And  anyhow,  if  I  don't  write  tlie  plays, 
some  one  else  will.  I've  always  believed  that  if  there's  a 
good  job  to  be  done  in  the  world,  it'll  get  done  by  some- 
body. If  this  chap  fails  to  do  it,  it'll  be  done  by  some  other 
chap.  .  .  .  Will  you  come  into  Holyhead  with  me  and  en- 
quire about  trains?    There's  a  rumour  that  a  whole  lot  of 


CHANGING  WINDS  417 

them    have    been    taken    off.    They're    shifting    troops 
about.  ..." 


Gilbert  was  to  travel  by  the  Irish  mail  the  next  day. 
He  had  made  up  his  mind  definitely  to  go  to  London  and 
enlist,  and  Henry,  having  failed  to  dissuade  him  from  his 
decision,  resolved  to  go  to  London  with  him.  They  had 
talked  about  the  war  all  day,  insisting  to  each  other  that 
it  could  not  be  of  long  duration.  There  was  a  while,  dur- 
ing the  first  two  or  three  days'  fighting,  when  the  Germans 
seemed  to  have  been  held  by  the  Belgians,  that  they  had  the 
wildest  hopes.  * '  If  the  Belgians  can  keep  them  back,  what 
will  happen  when  the  French  and  British  get  at  them?" 
But  that  time  of  jubilee  hope  did  not  last  long,  and  again 
the  air  was  full  of  rumours  of  disaster  and  misfortune. 
The  Black  Watch  had  been  cut  to  pieces.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  sense  of  fear  in  every  heart,  not  of  physical 
cowardice,  but  of  doubt  of  the  stability  of  things.  This 
horrible  disaster  had  been  foretold  many  times,  so  fre- 
quently, indeed,  that  it  had  become  a  joke,  and  novelists 
had  written  horrific  accounts  of  the  ills  that  would  swiftly 
follow  after  the  outbreak  of  hostilities.  Credit  would  dis- 
appear .  .  .  and  all  that  pretence  at  wealth,  the  pieces  of 
paper  and  the  scrips  and  shares,  would  be  revealed  at  last 
as  .  .  .  pieces  of  paper.  Silver,  even,  would  be  treated  with 
contempt,  and  there  would  be  a  scramble  for  gold.  And 
people  would  begin  to  hoard  things  .  .  .  and  no  one  would 
trust  any  one  else.  There  would  be  suspicion  and  fear  and 
greed  and  hate  .  .  .  and  very  swiftly  and  very  surely, 
civilisation  would  reel  and  topple  and  fall  to  pieces.  .  .  . 
At  any  moment  that  might  happen.  So  far,  indeed,  things 
were  still  steady  .  .  .  calamity  had  not  come  so  quickly  as 
imaginative  men  had  foretold  .  .  .  but  presently,  when  the 
slums  .  .  .  the  rich  man's  reproach  .  .  .  had  become  hun* 


418  CHANGING  WINDS 

grier  than  they  usually  were,  there  would  be  rioting  .  .  . 
and  killing.  .  .  .  One  began  to  be  frightfully  conscious  of 
the  slums  .  .  .  and  the  rage  of  desperate,  starving  people. 
One  imagined  the  obsessing  thought  in  each  mind :  Here  we 
are,  eating  and  drinking  and  being  waited  upon  .  .  .  and 
perhaps  to-morrow!  .  .  . 

But  no  one,  in  forecasting  the  European  Disaster,  had 
made  allowance  for  the  obstinacy  of  man  or  taken  into  ac- 
count the  resisting  power  of  human  society.  As  if  man, 
having  built  up  this  mighty  structure  of  civilisation,  would 
let  it  be  flung  down  in  a  moment  without  trying  to  save 
some  of  it!  As  if  man,  having  in  pain  and  bloody  sweat 
discovered  his  soul,  would  let  it  get  lost  without  struggling 
to  hold  and  preserve  it !  .  .  . 

Gilbert  and  Henry  came  into  the  drawing-room,  where 
the  women  were  whispering  to  each  other.  Inexplicably, 
almost  unconsciously,  their  voices  had  fallen  to  whispers 
...  as  if  they  were  in  church  or  a  corpse  were  above  in  a 
bedroom.  .  .  .  Four  of  the  women  were  playing  Bridge, 
but  none  of  them  wished  to  play  Bridge;  and  as  Gilbert 
and  Henry  entered  the  room,  they  put  down  their  cards 
and  looked  round  at  them. 

"Is  there  any  more  news?"  one  of  them  said,  and  Gil- 
bert told  them  of  the  rumours  that  had  been  heard  in  Holy- 
head. 

"They  say  the  Black  Watch  have  been  cut  to  pieces," 
he  said. 

The  whispering  stopped.  .  .  .  They  could  hear  the 
clock's  regular  tick-tick.  .  .  . 

* '  Oh,  the  poor  men  .  .  .  the  poor  men ! "  an  old  woman 
said,  and  her  fingers  began  to  twitch.  .  .  . 

Almost  mechanically,  the  Bridge  players  picked  up  their 
cards.  "It's  your  lead,  partner!"  one  of  them  said,  and 
then  she  threw  down  her  cards,  and  rising  from  her  chair, 
tvent  swiftly  from  the  room. 

"Oh,  the  poor  men  .  .  .  the  poor  men!"  the  old  woman 
moaned. 


CHANGING  WINDS  419 


They  sat  on  the  rocks  after  tea  and  while  they  sat  there, 
they  saw  a  great  ship  sailing  up  the  sea,  beautiful  and 
proud  and  swift;  and  they  jumped  up  and  climbed  to  tlie 
highest  point  of  the  cliff  to  watch  her  go  by.  They  knew 
her,  for  there  had  been  anxiety  about  her  for  two  days, 
and  as  they  watched  her  sailing  past,  they  cheered  and 
waved  their  hands  although  no  one  on  the  great  vessel  could 
see  them.     A  girl  came  running  to  them.  .  .  . 

"What  is  it?"  she  said. 

"It's  the  Lusitania,"  they  answered.  "She's  dodged 
them,  damn  them!" 

'  *  Oh,  hurrah ! "  the  girl  shouted.    * '  Hurrah !    Hurrah ! ' ' 

8 

And  then  the  strain  lifted.  The  Lusitania  had  won 
home  to  safety.  The  .Germans,  greedy  for  this  great  prize, 
had  failed  to  find  her.  Civilisation  still  held  good  ...  if 
the  world  were  to  go  down  in  the  fight,  it  would  go  down 
proudly,  hitting  hard,  hitting  until  the  last.  .  .  . 


THE  FIFTH  CHAPTER 


It  was  odd,  that  journey  from  Holyhead  to  London,  odd 
and  silent;  for  all  the  way  from  Wales  to  Euston  they 
passed  but  one  train.  They  drove  through  the  long  stretch 
of  England,  past  wide  and  windy  fields  where  the  harvest- 
ers were  cutting  the  corn,  through  the  dark  towns  of  the 
Potteries,  by  the  collieries  where  the  wheels  still  revolved  as 
the  cages  were  lowered  and  raised,  and  then,  plunging  into 
the  outer  areas  of  London,  they  drove  swiftly  up  to  the 
station.  In  the  evening,  they  went  to  Hampstead  to  see 
Roger  and  Rachel,  and  found  them  reading  newspapers. 

*  *  I  don 't  seem  able  to  do  anything  else, ' '  said  Roger.  ' '  I 
buy  every  edition  that  comes  out.  I  read  the  damn  things 
over  and  over,  and  then  I  read  them  again.  ..." 

Rachel  nodded  her  head.     ''So  do  I,"  she  said. 

A  girl  came  in,  a  friend  of  Rachel,  who  had  been  in 
Finland  when  the  war  began.  She  had  hurried  home  by 
Berlin,  where  she  had  spent  an  hour  or  two,  while  waiting 
for  a  train,  before  England  declared  war  on  Germany.  .  .  . 

**What  were  they  like?"  Gilbert  asked. 

"Wild  with  excitement.  We  went  to  a  restaurant  to  get 
something  to  eat,  and  while  we  were  there,  the  news  came 
that  Russia  was  at  war  with  them.  .  .  .  My  goodness! 
There  was  a  Russian  in  the  room,  and  they  went  for  him ! 
...  I  had  my  aunt  with  me,  and  I  was  afraid  she'd  get 
hurt,  so  we  cleared  out  as  quickly  as  we  could,  and  when  we 
got  to  the  station,  we  had  to  fight  to  get  into  the  train. 
My  aunt  fainted  .  .  .  and  they  were  beastly  to  us,  oh, 
beastly!  I  tried  to  get  things  for  her,  but  they  wouldn't 
give  us  anything!     They  kept  on  telling  us  we'd  be  shot, 

420 


CHANGING  WINDS  421 

and  threatening  us!  .  .  .  They  were  frightened,  those  big 
fat  men  were  frightened.  If  you'd  touched  them  sud- 
denly, they'd  have  squealed  .  .  .  like  panic-stricken  rab- 
bits! .  .  ." 

They  sat  and  talked  and  talked,  and  gloom  settled  on 
them.  What  was  to  be  the  end  of  this  horrible  thing  which 
no  one  had  desired,  but  no  one  was  able  to  prevent. 

"I  believe  they  all  lost  their  nerve  at  the  last,"  Roger 
said,  "and  they  just  .  .  .  just  let  things  rip.  They  call 
it  a  brain-storm  in  America.  They  lost  their  heads  .  .  . 
and  they  let  things  rip.  My  God,  what  a  thing  to  have 
happened!" 

They  sat  in  silence,  full  of  foreboding,  and  then  the  girl 
who  had  come  from  Finland  went  home. 

"It's  all  up  with  the  Bar,  I  suppose!"  said  Roger,  when 
he  had  let  her  out.  '  *  Whatever  else  people  want  to  do,  they 
won 't  want  to  go  to  law.  Having  a  youngster  makes  things 
awkward!  ..." 

"If  you  should  need  any  money,  Roger,"  said  Gilbert, 
"you  might  let  me  know!" 

' '  And  me,  Roger ! ' '  said  Henry. 

"Thanks  awfully!"  Roger  replied.  "I  won't  forget. 
I've  got  some,  of  course,  and  Rachel  has  a  little.  I  dare- 
say we  '11  manage.  It  can 't  last  long.  A  couple  of  months, 
perhaps!  ..." 

"I  can't  see  how  it  can  last  longer.  It's  too  big,  and 
...  oh,  it  can't  last  longer!" 

"  Kitchener  says  three  years !  ..." 

* '  He  wants  to  be  on  the  safe  side,  I  suppose,  but  my  God, 
three  years  of  ...  of  that !  .  .  . " 

2 

Rachel  got  up  suddenly.  "You  haven't  seen  my  baby 
yet,"  she  said. 

"  So  we  haven 't, ' '  Gilbert  exclaimed.    '  *  Where  is  it  ? " 
"She's  upstairs  asleep.    You  must  come  quietly!  ..." 


422  CHANGING  WINDS 

"It's  a  girl,  then?"  said  Henry. 

Rachel  nodded,  and  led  the  way  upstairs  to  the  bedroom 
where  the  baby  lay  in  her  cot. 

"Isn't  she  a  darling?"  she  said,  bending  over  the  child. 

They  did  not  answer,  afraid,  as  men  are  in  the  presence 
of  a  sleeping  child,  that  they  might  disturb  her ;  and  while 
they  stood  looking  at  the  cot,  Rachel  bent  closer  to  her  baby, 
and  lightly  kissed  her  cheek. 

They  moved  away  on  tiptoe. 

* '  What  do  you  call  her  ? ' '  Henry  whispered  to  Roger,  as 
they  left  the  bedroom. 

"Eleanor,"  he  answered.  "That  was  my  mother's 
name.    Jolly  little  kid,  isn't  she?" 

Gilbert  turned  and  went  back  to  the  bedroom.  Rachel 
was  still  bending  over  the  baby,  and  she  looked  up  at  him 
warningly.  He  went  up  to  the  cot  and,  leaning  towards 
Rachel,  whispered,  "Do  you  mind  if  I  kiss  her,  too,  Rachel? 
I'm  going  to  enlist  to-morrow,  and  perhaps  I  won't  get  so 
good  a  chance  as  this !  .  .  . " 

She  stood  up  quickly  and  put  her  arms  round  him.  ' '  Oh, 
Gilbert ! ' '  she  said,  and  then  she  drew  him  down,  so  that 
he  could  kiss  the  baby  easily. 

3 

Henry  told  Roger  of  Gilbert's  intention,  while  Rachel 
and  Gilbert  were  in  the  bedroom  with  the  baby. 

"Enlist?"  said  Roger. 

Henry  nodded  his  head. 

"Well,  of  course!  ..."  Roger  began,  and  then  he 
stopped.  * '  I  suppose  so, ' '  he  said,  moving  towards  the  tray 
which  Rachel  had  brought  into  the  room  earlier  in  the  even- 
ing.    "Whisky?"  he  said. 

"No,  thanks,  Roger!"  Henry  answered.  "He's  going 
down  to-morrow ! ' ' 

"He'd  better  wait  a  few  days.  There's  been  a  hell  of  a 
sci-um  already  to  join.    Queues  and  queues  of  chaps,  stand- 


CHANGING  WINDS  423 

ing  outside  Scotland  Yard  all  day.  He'd  better  wait  'til 
the   rush  is  over.  ..." 

* '  I  think  he  'd  rather  like  to  be  in  the  rush, ' '  Henry  said. 

Tlien  Rachel  came  into  the  room,  followed  by  Gilbert. 

*' Roger,"  she  said,  "Gilbert's  going  to  enlist!  ..." 

"So  Quinny's  just  been  telling  me.  Have  a  whisky, 
Gilbert?" 

"No,  thanks,  old  chap,"  said  Gilbert,  "but  if  you  have 
a  cigarette!  ..." 

"I'll  get  them,"  Rachel  exclaimed. 

She  brought  the  box  of  cigarettes  to  him,  and  while  he 
was  choosing  one,  she  said  to  Roger,  "I  was  so  excited  when 
he  told  me,  that  I  got  up  and  hugged  him!" 

"Good!"  said  Roger. 


They  walked  home  to  Bloomsbury,  where  they  had  easily 
obtained  rooms,  for  the  sudden  withdrawal  of  Germans  and 
Austrians  had  left  Bloomsbury  in  a  state  of  vacancy.  As 
they  went  down  Ilaverstock  Hill  towards  Chalk  Farm,  an 
old  man  lurched  against  them. 

"All  the  young  chaps,"  he  mumbled  thickly.  "Thash 
wot  sticks  in  my  gizzard!  All  the  young  chaps!  Gaw- 
blimey,  why  don 't  they  tyke  the  ole  ones !  .  .  . " 

"Steady  on,"  Gilbert  exclaimed,  catching  his  arm  and 
holding  him  up.     "You'll  fall,  if  you're  not  careful!" 

' '  Don 't  marrer  a  damn  wherrer  I  do  or  not ! ' '  He  reeled 
a  little,  and  Gilbert  caught  hold  of  him  again.  "I  woul'n 
be  a  young  chap,"  he  muttered,  "not  for  .  .  .  not  for  no- 
think.  You  .  .  ,  you're  a  young  chap,  ain't  you?  Yesh 
you  are!  You  needn't  tell  me  you  ain't!  I  can  see  as 
wellsh  anythink !  You  're  a  young  chap  ri '  enough.  Well 
.  .  .  well.  Gawd,  'elp  you,  young  feller!  Thash  all  I  got 
to  sy  .  .  .  subjec!'  Goo-ni',  gen'lemen!"  He  staggered 
off  the  pavement,  and  went  half  way  across  the  deserted 
street.    Then  he  turned  and  looked  at  them  for  a  few  mo- 


424.  CHANGING  WINDS 

ments.  '  *  Ain  't  it  a  bloody  treat,  eih  ? "  he  shouted  to  them. 
*' Ain't  it  a  bloody  treat?" 

"Drunk,"  said  Gilbert. 

Henry  did  not  reply,  and  they  walked  on  through  Chalk 
Farm,  through  Camden  Town,  into  the  tangle  of  mean 
streets  by  Euston,  and  then  across  the  Euston  Road  to 
Bloomsbury.  They  did  not  speak  to  each  other  until  they 
were  almost  at  their  destination. 

''It's  awfully  quiet,"  said  Henry,  turning  and  looking 
about  him. 

"I  don't  see  any  one,"  Gilbert  answered,  "except  that 
old  fellow  ahead  of  us!  .  .  ." 

"No!" 

They  walked  on,  and  when  they  came  up  to  the  old  man, 
who  walked  slowly,  and  heavily  in  the  same  direction,  they 
called  "Good-night!"  to  him.  He  looked  round  at  them, 
an  old,  tired,  bewildered  man,  and  he  made  a  gesture  with 
his  hands,  a  gesture  of  despair.  "Ach,  mein  freund!"  he 
said  brokenly,  and  again  he  made  the  suppliant  motion 
with  his  hands. 

"Poor  old  devil!"  Gilbert  muttered  almost  to  himself. 


They  went  to  their  rooms  at  once,  too  tired  to  talk  to 
each  other,  and  Henry,  hurriedly  undressing,  got  into  bed. 
But  he  could  not  sleep.  "I  suppose  I  ought  to  join,  too!" 
he  said  to  himself,  as  he  lay  on  his  back,  staring  at  the 
ceiling.    "Gilbert  and  I  could  go  together!  ..." 

But  what  would  be  the  good  of  that?  The  war  would 
be  over  quite  soon.  Even  Roger  thought  it  would  be  over 
in  a  couple  of  months,  and  if  that  were  so,  there  would  be 
no  need  for  him  to  throw  up  his  work  and  take  to  soldier- 
ing. "It'll  be  over  before  Gilbert's  got  through  his  train- 
ing.   Long  before!  ..." 

* '  Anyhow,  I  can  wait  until  the  rush  is  over.  I  might  as 
well  go  on  working  as  stand  outside  Scotland  Yard  all  day. 


CHANGING  WINDS  425 

waiting  to  be  taken  on.  ...  Or  I  could  apply  for  a  com- 
mission! ..." 

He  lay  very  still,  hoping  that  he  would  fall  asleep  soon, 
but  sleep  would  not  come  to  him.  He  sat  up  in  bed,  and 
glanced  about  the  room. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said  aloud,  **  they 're  fighting  now!" 

He  lay  down  again  quickly,  thrusting  himself  well  under 
the  bedclothes  and  shut  his  eyes  tightly.  **0h,  my  God, 
isn't  it  horrible?"  he  groaned. 

He  saw  again  that  crowd  of  hurried  soldiers  detraining 
at  Holyhead,  thinking  that  perhaps  they  were  going  to 
Ireland,  but  not  quite  sure  .  .  .  and  he  could  see  them 
stumbling  up  the  gangways  of  the  transport,  each  man 
heavily  accoutred ;  and  sometimes  a  man  would  laugh,  and 
sometimes  a  man  would  swear  .  .  .  and  then  the  ship 
sailed  out  of  the  harbour,  rounding  the  pier  and  the  break- 
water, churning  the  sea  into  a  long  white  trail  of  foam  as 
she  set  her  course  past  the  South  Stack.  .  .  .  They  could 
see  the  lights  on  her  masthead  diminishing  as  she  went 
further  away,  and  then,  as  the  cold  sea  wind  blew  about 
them,  they  shivered  and  went  home.  .  .  .  Now,  lying  here 
in  this  stillness,  warm  and  snug,  Henry  could  see  those 
soldiers,  huddled  together  on  the  ship.  He  could  imagine 
them,  murmuring  to  one  another,  *  *  I  say,  d  'ye  think  we  are 
goin'  to  Ireland?"  and  hear  one  answering,  "You'll  know 
in  three  hours.  We'll  be  there  then,  if  we  are!"  and 
slowly  there  would  come  to  each  man  the  knowledge  that 
their  journey  was  not  to  Ireland,  but  to  France,  and  there 
would  be  a  tightening  of  the  lips,  an  involuntary  move- 
ment here  and  there  and  then.  .  .  .  *'Well,  o'  course,  we're 
goin'  to  France!  'Oo  the  'ell  thought  we  was  goin'  any- 
where else  ? ' '  The  ship  would  carry  them  swiftly  down  the 
Irish  Sea  and  across  the  English  Channel  .  .  .  and  after 
that!  .  .  . 

"Some  of  them  may  be  dead  already,"  he  murmured  to 
himself. 

Tom  up  suddenly  from  their  accustomed  life,  hurried 


426  CHANGING  WINDS 

through  the  darkness  along  the  length  of  England,  and 
then,  after  long,  cold  nights  on  the  sea,  landed  in  France 
and  set  to  slaying.  .  .  . 

' '  And  they  won 't  know  what 's  it  f or  ? " 

But  did  that  matter?  Would  it  be  any  better  if  they 
were  aware  of  the  cause  of  the  fight  ?  One  lived  in  a  land 
and  loved  it.     Surely,  that  was  sufficient  ? 

In  his  mind,  he  could  still  see  the  soldiers,  but  always 
they  were  moving  in  the  dark.  He  could  see  very  vividly 
the  man  who  had  asked  Perkins  to  write  to  his  wife  .  .  . 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  still  demanding  of 
passers-by  that  they  should  write  to  her.  *  *  Tell  'er  1  'm  all 
right,"  he  kept  on  saying.    "So  far,  any'ow!  ..." 

He  turned  over  on  his  side,  dragging  the  clothes  about 
his  head,  and  tried  to  shut  out  the  vision  of  the  soldiers 
marching  through  the  fields  of  France,  but  he  could  not 
shut  it  out.  They  still  marched,  endlessly,  ceaselessly 
marched.  .  .  . 

6 

When  they  got  to  Scotland  Yard,  there  was  a  great  crowd 
of  men  waiting  to  be  enlisted. 

' '  You  'd  better  come  again,  Gilbert,  * '  Henry  said.  '  *  You  '11 
have  to  hang  about  here  all  day,  and  then  perhaps  you 
won't  be  reached!" 

'  *  I  think  I  '11  hang  about  anyhow, ' '  Gilbert  answered. 

He  had  become  queerly  quiet  since  the  beginning  of  the 
War.  The  old,  light-hearted,  exaggerated  speech  had  gone 
from  him,  and  when  he  spoke,  his  words  were  abrupt  and 
colourless.  He  took  his  place  at  the  end  of  the  file  of  men, 
and  as  he  did  so,  the  man  in  front  of  him,  a  fringe-haired, 
quick-eyed  youth  with  a  muffler  round  his  neck,  turned  and 
greeted  him.  **  'Illoa,  myte!"  he  said  with  the  cheery 
friendliness  of  the  East  End,    **You  come  too,  eih?" 

Gilbert  answered,  "Yes,  I  thought  I  might  as  well!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  427 

""We'll  'ave  to  wyte  a  'ell  of  a  time,"  the  Cockney  went 
on.  **Some  of  'em's  bin  'ere  since  six  this  mornin'.  Gaw- 
blimey,  you'd  think  they  was  givin'  awy  prizes.  I  dunno 
wot  the  'ell  I  come  for.    I  jus'  did,  sort  of!  .  .  ." 

Some  one  standing  by,  turned  to  a  recruiting  sergeant 
and  whispered  something  to  him,  pointing  to  the  gutter- 
snipes in  the  queue. 

* '  Fight ! ' '  said  the  recuiting  sergeant.  *  *  Gawd  love  you, 
guv  'nor,  they  'd  fight  'ell 's  blazes,  them  chaps  would ! ' ' 

Henry  tried  again  to  induce  Gilbert  to  fall  out  of  the 
queue  and  wait  until  there  was  more  likelihood  of  being 
enlisted  quickly,  but  Gilbert  would  not  be  persuaded. 

"You'll  have  to  get  something  to  eat,"  Henry  urged. 
"They'll  never  get  near  you  until  this  evening,  and  if 
you've  got  to  fall  out  to  get  food,  you  might  as  well  fall 
out  now!" 

"I  think  I'll  wait,"  Gilbert  repeated.  "Perhaps,"  he 
went  on,  "you'll  get  me  some  sandwiches.  Get  a  lot,  will 
you.  This  chap  in  front  of  me  doesn't  look  as  if  he'd 
brought  anything!" 

"You  could  get  a  commission,  Gilbert,  easily,"  Henry 
said. 

"I  don't  think  I  should  be  much  good  as  an  officer, 
Quinny.  ...  Go  and  get  the  sandwiches  like  a  decent 
chap!" 

Henry  went  away  to  do  as  Gilbert  had  bidden  him,  and 
after  a  while,  he  returned  with  a  big  packet  of  sandwiches 
and  apples. 

"I  shan't  wait,  Gilbert,"  he  said.  "I  can't  stand  about 
all  day.     I'll  come  back  when  the  rush  is  over.  ..." 

"But  why,  Quinny?" 

"I'm  going  to  join,  too,  with  you!  ..." 

"You're  going  to  join?  .  .  .  That's  awf'lly  decent  of 
you,  Quinny!" 

"Decent!  Why?  It  isn't  any  more  decent  than  your 
joining  is!" 


428  CHANGING  WINDS 

"P'raps  not,  but  I  always  think  it's  very  decent  of  an 
Irishman  to  fight  for  England.  If  there  doesn't  seem  any 
chance  of  my  getting  in  to-day,  I'll  come  back  to  tea. 
There's  a  fellow  here  says  this  is  the  second  day  he's  been 
waiting ! ' ' 

Henry  went  away.  He  walked  along  the  Embankment 
towards  Blackfriars,  and  when  he  had  reached  the  Temple, 
he  turned  up  one  of  the  steep  streets  that  link  the  Em- 
bankment to  Fleet  Street. 

"  I  '11  go  and  see  Delap, ' '  he  said  to  himself. 

Delap  was  the  editor  of  a  weekly  paper  for  which  Henry 
had  sometimes  written  articles.  Delap,  however,  was  not 
at  the  office,  but  Bundy,  the  manager  of  the  paper,  who  was 
also  the  financier,  was  there. 

''It's  all  up  with  us,"  said  Bundy.  "We're  closing 
down  next  week!" 

"Closing  down!" 

"Yes.  We're  bust.  Damn  it,  we're  getting  on  splen- 
didly, too.  Just  turning  the  comer !  We  should  have  had 
a  magnificent  autumn  if  it  hadn  't  been  for  this.  ..." 

He  came  away  from  Bundy,  and  walked  aimlessly  down 
Fleet  Street.  "Lots  of  other  people  would  have  had  a  fine 
autumn  if  it  hadn't  been  for  this,"  he  thought  to  himself, 
and  then  he  saw  Leadenham  and  Crowborough,  who  worked 
on  the  Cottenham  Guardian.  They  were  very  pale  and 
tired -looking. 

"Hilloa!"  he  said,  slapping  Leadenham  on  the  back. 

Leadenham  jumped  .  .  .  startled!  "Oh,  it's  you,"  he 
said,  smiling  weakly. 

* '  Yes.  What 's  up  ?  You  look  frightened ! "  He  turned 
to  greet  Crowborough. 

"Well,  we're  all  rather  jiggered  by  this,"  Leadenham 
replied.  "We're  going  to  get  something  to  eat.  Come 
with  us!" 

They  went  into  a  tea-shop  and  sat  down.  "Is  the 
Guardian  all  right?"  Henry  asked. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Leadenham  wearily,  "as  right  as  any- 


CHANGING  WINDS  489 

thing  is.  Nobody  in  Fleet  Street  knows  how  long  his  job  '11 
last.  Half  the  men  on  the  Daily  Circle  have  had  the  sack. 
Some  of  our  chaps  have  gone !  Fleet  Street 's  full  of  men 
looking  for  jobs,  j^bout  fifty  papers  have  smashed  up 
since  the  thing  began  .  .  .  sporting  papers  mostly.  It 
frightens  you,  this  sort  of  thing!  ..." 

He  came  away  from  Fleet  Street  as  quickly  as  possible. 
The  nervous,  hectic  state  of  the  journalists  made  him  feel 
nervous  too. 

"I'd  better  get  among  less  jumpy  people,"  he  said  to 
himself,  and  he  hurried  towards  Charing  Cross.  And  there 
he  met  Jimphy.  He  did  not  recognise  him  at  first,  for 
Jimphy  was  in  khaki,  and  he  would  have  passed  on  with- 
out seeing  him,  had  Jimphy  not  caught  hold  of  his  arm  and 
stopped  him. 

"Cutting  a  chap,  damn  you!"  said  Jimphy.  .  .  . 

"Good  Lord,  I  didn't  know  you!" 

"Thought  you  didn't.     Where  you  going?" 

"Oh,  nowhere.  Just  loafing  about.  Gilbert's  down  at 
Scotland  Yard  trying  to  enlist." 

"Is  he,  begad?  Everybody  seems  to  be  trying  to  en- 
list. He'd  much  better  try  to  get  a  commission.  I'm  go- 
ing home  now.  You  come  with  me,  Quinny.  Hi,  hi !  .  .  . " 
He  hailed  a  taxi-cab,  and,  without  waiting  to  hear  what 
Henry  had  to  say,  bundled  him  into  it. 

"Lord,"  he  exclaimed,  as  he  leant  back  in  the  cab,  "it's 
years  an'  years  an'  years  since  I  saw  you.  Well,  what 
do  you  think  of  this  for  a  bally  war,  eh?  Millions  of  'em 
.  .  .  all  smacldn'  each  other.  I'm  going  out  soon!"  He 
leant  out  of  the  window  and  shouted  at  the  driver,  "Hi, 
you  chap,  hurry  up,  will  you! 

"I  don't  seem  able  to  get  anywhere  quick  enough  nowa- 
days," he  said  as  he  sat  back  again  in  his  seat.  "You 
know,"  he  went  on,  "we've  never  been  to  the  Empire  yet, 
you  an'  me.  Damned  if  we  have!  Never  mind!  We'll 
go  when  the  War's  over!" 


430  CHANGING  WINDS 


There  were  half  a  dozen  women  in  the  drawing-room 
with  Cecily  when  Henry  and  Jimphy  entered  it.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  women,  there  were  a  photographer  and  Boltt. 
The  photographer  had  finished  his  work  and  was  prepar- 
ing to  depart,  and  Boltt  was  talking  in  his  nice  little 
clipped  voice  about  the  working-class.  It  appeared  that 
the  working-class  had  not  realised  the  seriousness  of  the 
situation.  The  other  classes  had  been  quick  to  understand 
and  to  offer  themselves,  but  the  working-class.  ...  No! 
Oo,  noo!  Boltt  had  written  an  article  in  the  Evening  Ga- 
zette full  of  gentle  reproach  to  the  working-class,  but  with- 
out effect.  The  working-class  had  taken  no  notice.  "De- 
mocracy, dear  ladies,"  said  Boltt,  with  a  downward  mo- 
tion of  his  fingers.  ''Democracy!"  A  newspaper,  a  La- 
bour newspaper,  had  been  rather  rude  to  Boltt.  It  had 
put  some  intimate,  he  might  say,  impertinent,  questions  to 
Boltt,  but  Boltt  had  borne  this  impertinent  inquisition  with 
fortitude.    He  had  not  made  any  answer  to  it.  .  .  . 

* '  Hilloa,  Paddy ! ' '  Lady  Cecily  called  across  the  room  to 
Henry.    "Aren't  you  at  the  war?" 

"Well,  no,  I  only  got  to  London.  ..." 

"Oh,  but  everybody's  going.  Jimphy  and  everybody! 
Except  Mr.  Boltt,  of  course.  He's  unfit  or  something. 
Aren't  you,  Mr.  Boltt?" 

"Ah,  if  I  were  only  a  young  man  again.  Lady  Ce- 
cily! .  .  ." 

"But  he's  writing  to  the  papers,  and  that's  something, 
isn't  it?"  Cecily  interrupted.  "And  I'm  making  mittens 
for  the  soldiers.  We're  all  making  mittens.  Except  Mr. 
Boltt,  of  course." 

"Who  was  the  johnny  who's  just  gone  out?"  Jimphy 
demanded.  "Was  he  the  chap  who  sells  the  stuff  you  make 
the  mittens  out  of?  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  no,  Jimphy,  he  was  a  photographer.  We're  all  to 
have  our  photographs  in  the  Daily  Reflexion.  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  431 

**  Except  Mr.  Boltt?"  Henry  asked  maliciously. 

"No,  Mr,  Boltt's  to  be  in  it  too.  Holding  wool.  I've 
been  photographed  in  three  different  positions  .  .  .  begin- 
ning to  knit  a  mitten,  half-way  through  a  mitten,  and 
finishing  a  mitten.  I  was  rather  anxious  to  be  taken  with 
a  pile  of  socks,  but  I  can 't  knit  socks !  .  .  . " 

"You  can't  knit  mittens  either,"  said  Jimphy. 

It  appeared  that  Lady  Cecily 's  maid  was  allowed  to  undo 
her  mistress's  false  stitches  and  finish  the  mittens  prop- 
erly. .  .  . 

"Well,  of  course,  I'm  not  really  a  knitter,"  Cecily  ad- 
mitted, "but  I  feel  I  must  do  something  for  the  country. 
I've  a  good  mind  to  take  up  nursing.  I  met  Jenny  Cus- 
toms this  morning,  and  she  says  it's  quite  easy,  and  the 
uniform  is  rather  nice.  ..." 

"But  don't  you  require  to  be  trained?"  Henry  asked 
dubiously. 

"Oh,  yes,  if  you're  a  professional.  But  I'm  not.  I'm 
doing  it  for  the  country.  Jenny  Customs  went  to  a  First 
Aid  Class,  and  learnt  quite  a  lot  about  bandaging.  She  can 
change  sheets  while  the  patient  is  in  bed,  and  she  says  he 
can  scarcely  tell  that  she's  doing  it.  I  should  love  to  be 
able  to  do  that.  She  told  me  a  lot  of  things,  and  I  really 
know  the  first  lesson  already.  I  can  shake  a  bottle  of  med- 
icine the  proper  way!  ..." 

* '  Can 't  we  have  tea  or  something  ? ' '  said  Jimphy.  *  *  Oh, 
by  the  way,  Cecily,  Quinn  says  that  chap  Gilbert  Farlow's 
hanging  about  Scotland  Yard.  ..." 

"Goodness  me,  what  for?"  Cecily  demanded  in  a  star- 
tled voice.     "He  hasn't  done  anything,  has  he?" 

"No,  of  course  he  hasn't.    He's  trying  to  enlist!" 

"Enlist!"  she  said. 

' '  Yes.    Silly  ass  not  to  ask  for  a  commission ! ' '  said  Jim- 

phy- 

Boltt  burbled  about  the  priceless  privilege  of  youth.     If 
only  he  were  a  youngster  once  again !  .  .  . 
They  drank  their  tea,  while  Jimphy  discoursed  on  the 


432  CHANGING  WINDS 

war,  Henry  had  entered  Cecily's  house  with  a  feeling  of 
alarm,  wondering  whether  she  would  be  friendly  to  him, 
wondering  whether  he  would  be  able  to  look  into  her  eyes 
and  not  care  .  .  .  and  now  he  knew  that  he  did  not  care. 
There  was  something  incredibly  unfeeling  and  trivial 
about  Cecily,  something  .  .  .  vulgar.  While  the  world 
was  still  reeling  from  the  shock  of  the  War,  she  was  ar- 
ranging to  be  photographed  with  mittens  that  she  had  not 
made  and  could  not  make.  The  portrait  would  be  re- 
produced in  the  Daily  Reflexion  under  the  title  of  "Lady 
Cecily  Jayne  Does  Her  Bit."  .  .  .  But  she  was  beautiful, 
undeniably  she  was  beautiful.  As  he  looked  at  her,  she 
raised  her  eyes,  conscious  perhaps  of  his  stare,  and  smiled 
at  him.  .  .  . 

"She'd  smile  at  anybody,"  he  said  to  himself.  "If  she 
had  any  feeling  at  all  for  me,  she  'd  be  angry  with  me ! " 

She  came  to  him.  "I  wish  you'd  tell  Gilbert  to  come 
and  see  me,"  she  said,  sitting  down  beside  him. 

"Very  well,"  he  answered,  "I  will!" 

"I'm  sure  he'll  look  awfully  nice  in  khaki.  And  I 
should  love  to  see  him  saluting  Jimphy.  He'll  have  to  do 
that,  you  know,  if  he's  a  private.  ..." 


8 

He  got  away  as  soon  as  he  could  decently  do  so,  and  went 
back  to  Bloomsbury.  "That  isn't  England,"  he  told  him- 
self, "that  mitten-making,  posturing  crew!"  and  he  re- 
membered the  great  queues  of  men,  standing  outside  Scot- 
land Yard,  struggling  to  get  into  the  Army,  and  suffering 
much  discomfort  in  the  effort. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said  to  himself,  "Gilbert's  at  home  now. 
I  wonder  if  he  managed  to  get  in ! " 

A  man  and  a  woman  were  standing  at  the  corner  of  a 
street,  talking,  and  he  overheard  them  as  he  passed. 

"  'lUoa,  Sarah,"  the  man  said,  "w'ere  you  goin',  eih?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  433 

"Goin'  roun'  the  awfices,"  she  answered,  **to  see  if  I 
kin  get  a  job  o'  charin'!" 

' '  Gawblimey ! ' '  said  the  man,  laughing  at  her. 

"Well,  you  got  to  do  somethink,  'aven't  you?  No  good 
sittin'  on  your  be'ind  an'  'owlin'  because  there's  a  war  on, 
is  there?" 

There  was  more  of  the  spirit  of  England  in  that,  Henry 
thought,  than  in  Cecily's  mitten-making.  .  .  . 

Gilbert  was  not  at  home  when  he  reached  the  Bloomsbury 
boarding-house.    "Still  trying,  I  suppose,"  Henry  thought. 

There  was  a  telegram  for  him.  His  father  was  ill  again, 
"seriously  ill,"  was  the  message,  and  he  was  needed  at 
home. 

He  hurriedly  wrote  a  note  to  be  given  to  Gilbert  when 
he  returned,  in  case  he  should  not  see  him  again,  but  be- 
fore he  had  begun  his  packing,  Gilbert  came  in. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  said.  "I've  joined.  I've  had  a 
week's  leave.  ...  I'm  damned  tired!" 

"My  father's  ill  again,  Gilbert.  I've  just  had  a  tele- 
gram, and  I'm  going  back  to-night!  ..." 

"I'm  awf'Uy  sorry,  Quinny!"  Gilbert  said,  quickly 
sympathetic. 

"I  met  Jimphy  at  Charing  Cross.  He's  in  khaki.  He 
took  me  back  to  tea.     Cecily 's  making  mittens !  .  .  . " 

"She  would,"  said  Gilbert. 

"She  told  me  to  tell  you  to  go  and  see  her!" 

"Did  she,  indeed?" 

"You'll  stay  here,  I  suppose,"  Henry  went  on,  "until 
you're  called  up?"  Gilbert  nodded  his  head.  "Let  me 
know  what  happens  to  you  afterwards,  will  you?" 

"Righto!" 

"I'll  come  back  as  soon  as  I  can,  Gilbert!" 


THE  SIXTH  CHAPTER 

1 

Mb.  Quinn  died  at  Christmas.  The  old  man,  weakened  by 
his  long  illness,  had  been  stunned  by  the  War,  and  when 
his  second  illness  seized  him,  he  made  no  effort  to  resist  it. 
He  would  lie  very  quietly  for  a  long  while,  and  then  a 
paroxysm  of  fury  would  possess  him,  and  he  would  shake 
his  fist  impotently  in  the  air.  "If  they  wanted  a  war," 
he  shouted  once,  "why  didn't  they  go  and  fight  it  them- 
selves. They  were  paid  to  keep  the  peace,  and  .  .  . 
and!  .  .  ." 

He  fell  back  on  his  pillow,  exhausted,  and  when  Henry, 
hurrying  up  the  stairs  to  him  the  moment  he  heard  the 
shout,  reached  him,  he  was  gasping  for  breath.  "It's  all 
right,  son ! "  he  said  when  he  had  recovered  himself.  "  It 's 
all  right!  .  .  ." 

"It's  foolish  of  you,  father,  to  agitate  yourself  like  that," 
Henry  said  to  him,  putting  his  arms  round  him  and  lifting 
him  into  a  more  comfortable  position. 

"I  can't  help  it,  Henry,  when  I  think  of  ...  of  all  the 
young  lads!  ...  By  God,  they'd  no  right  to  do  it!  .  .  ." 

"Hush,  father!  ..." 

"They'd  no  right  to  do  it!  You'd  think  they  were 
greedy  for  blood  .  .  .  young  men's  blood!"  He  pointed 
to  an  English  newspaper  lying  on  the  floor.  "Did  you 
read  that  paper?"  he  said. 

"Yes." 

"Houndin'  them  into  it,"  the  old  man  went  on. 
"Yellin'  for  young  men!  By  God,  I'd  be  ashamed  .  .  . 
parsons  an'  women  an'  old  men  that  can't  fight  themselves, 

434 


CHANGING  WINDS  435 

houndin*  young  men  into  it !  If  they  'd  any  decency,  they  'd 
shut  up.  .  .  ." 

"All  right,  father!" 

**The  man  that  owns  this  paper  .  .  .  whatshis- 
name!  ..." 

*  *  It  doesn  't  matter,  does  it  ?    Lie  still  and  be  quiet ! ' ' 

"I  can't  be  quiet.  Like  a  damned  big  monster,  yellin' 
for  boys  to  eat.  Has  he  any  childher,  will  you  tell 
me?  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  know,  father!" 

"Of  course  he  hasn't.  An*  here  he  is,  yelpin'  in  his 
damned  rag  every  day,  *Fee-fo-fum,  I  smell  the  blood  of 
a  young  man!'  Why  don't  they  shove  him  at  the  Front 
.  .  ,  the  very  front!" 

"You  must  keep  quiet,  father!" 

"All  right,  Henry,  all  right!" 

He  was  silent  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  he  began 
again,  in  a  quieter  voice.  "I'd  have  put  the  men  that 
made  it,  the  whole  lot  of  them,  in  the  front  rank,  and  let 
them  blow  themselves  to  blazes.  Old  men  sittin'  in  of- 
fices, an'  makin'  wars,  an'  then  biddin'  young  men  to  pay 
the  price  of  them!  By  God,  that's  mean  !  By  God,  that's 
low!  .  .  ." 

"But  old  men  couldn't  bear  the  strain  of  it,  father!" 
Henry  interjected,  and  he  recalled  some  of  the  horrors  of 
the  trenches  where  the  soldiers  had  stood  with  the  water 
reaching  to  their  waists;  but  Mr.  Quinn  insisted  that  the 
old  men  should  have  fought  the  war  they  made. 

' '  Who  cares  a  damn  whether  they  can  bear  it  or  not, ' '  he 
said.  "Let  'em  die,  damn  'em!  They're  no  good!"  He 
turned  quickly  to  Henry,  and  demanded,  "What  good  are 
they?  Tell  me  that  now!"  but  before  Henry  could  make 
an  answer  to  him,  he  went  off  insistently, ' '  They  're  no  good, 
I  tell  you,  I  know  well  what  they're  like  .  .  .  sittin'  in  their 
clubs,  yappin'  an'  yappin'  an'  demandin'  this  an'  de- 
mandin'  that,  an'  gettin'  on  one  another's  nerves;  an' 
whatever  happens  it's  not  them  that  suffers  for  it:  it's 


436  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  young  lads  that  pays  for  everything.  Look  at  the  way 
the  old  fellows  go  on  in  Parliament,  Henry !  By  God,  I 
want  to  vomit  when  I  read  about  them!  Yappin*  an'  yap- 
pin'  when  they  should  be  down  on  their  knees  beggin'  God's 
forgiveness.  ..." 

He  spoke  as  if  he  were  not  himself  an  old  man,  and  it 
did  not  seem  strange  to  Henry  that  he  should  speak  in  that 
fashion,  for  Mr.  Quinn's  spirit  had  always  been  a  young 
spirit. 

"An'  these  wee  bitches  with  their  white  feathers,"  he 
went  on,  "ought  to  be  well  skelped.  If  I  had  a  daughter, 
an'  she  did  a  thing  like  that,  by  God,  I'd  break  her  skull 
for  her!" 

"I  suppose  they  think  they're  doing  their  duty,  father, 
and  they're  young!  ..." 

"There's  women  at  it,  too.  I  read  in  the  paper  yester- 
day mornin'  that  there  was  grown  women  doin'  it.  There's 
nobody  has  any  right  to  bid  a  man  go  to  that  except  them 
that's  been  to  it  themselves.  If  the  women  an'  the  par- 
sons an'  the  old  men  can't  fight  for  their  country,  they 
can  hold  their  tongues  for  it,  an'  by  God  they  ought  to 
be  made  to  hold  them.  ..." 

He  asked  continually  after  Gilbert. 

"He's  a  sergeant  now,  father.  He's  been  offered  a  com- 
mission, but  he  won't  take  it!  .  .  ." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  one  of  his  whimsy-whamsies,  I  suppose.  He  says 
the  non-commissioned  officers  are  the  backbone  of  the  Army, 
and  he  prefers  to  be  part  of  the  backbone.  You  remem- 
ber Ninian  Graham,  father?" 

"I  do,  rightly!  .  .  ." 

"He's  come  home  to  join.    He's  in  the  Engineers!" 

Mr.  Quinn  did  not  make  any  answer  to  Henry.  He 
slipped  a  little  further  into  the  bed,  and  lay  for  a  long 
while  with  his  eyes  closed,  so  long  that  Henry  thought  he 
had  fallen  asleep;  but,  just  when  Henry  began  to  tiptoe 


CHANGING  WINDS  437 

from  the  room,  he  opened  his  eyes  again,  and  suddenly  they 
were  full  of  tears. 

"The  fine  young  fellows,"  he  said.    "The  fine  young 
lads!" 


And  at  Christmas,  he  died.  He  had  called  Henry  to  him 
that  morning,  and  had  enquired  about  "The  Fennels," 
which  had  lately  been  published  after  a  postponement  and 
much  hesitation,  and  about  the  new  book  on  which  Henry 
was  now  working. 

"That's  right,"  he  said,  when  he  heard  that  Henry  was 
working  steadily  on  it.  "It'll  keep  your  mind  from 
broodin'.    How's  the  Ulster  book  goin'?" 

"  'The  Fennels'?" 

"Ay.  You  had  hard  luck,  son,  in  bringing  out  your 
best  book  at  a  time  like  this,  but  never  matter,  never  mat- 
ter! .  .  ." 

"I  don't  know  how  it's  doing.  It's  too  soon  to  tell  yet. 
The  reviews  have  been  good,  but  I  don't  suppose  people 
are  buying  books  at  present!" 

"You've  done  a  good  few  now,  Henry!" 

"Five,  father." 

"Ay,  I  have  the  lot  there  on  that  ledge  so's  I  can  take 
them  down  easily  an'  look  at  them.  I  feel  proud  of  you, 
son  .  .  .  proud  of  you!" 

He  began  to  remind  Henry  of  things  that  had  happened 
when  he  was  a  boy.  His  mind  became  flooded  with  mem- 
ories. "Do  you  mind  Bridget  Fallon?"  he  would  say,  and 
then  he  would  recall  many  incidents  that  were  connected 
with  her.  "Do  you  mind  the  way  you  wanted  to  go  to 
Cambridge,  an'  I  wouldn't  let  you,"  and  "Do  you  mind 
the  time  you  took  the  woollen  balls  from  Mr.  Maginn's 
house?  ..." 

Henry  remembered.    Mr.  Maginn,  the  vicar  of  Bally- 


438  CHANGING  WINDS 

martin,  had  invited  Henry  to  spend  the  afternoon  with  his 
nephew  and  niece  and  some  other  children.  They  had 
played  a  game  with  balls  made  of  coloured  wool,  and  while 
they  were  playing,  Henry,  liking  the  pattern  of  one  of 
them,  had  put  it  into  his  pocket.  It  had  been  missed,  and 
there  had  been  a  search  for  it,  in  which  Henry  had  joined. 
He  was  miserable,  and  he  wanted  to  confess  that  he  had 
the  ball,  but  every  time  he  opened  his  lips  to  say  that  he 
had  it,  he  felt  afraid,  and  so  he  had  refrained  from  speak- 
ing. He  felt,  too,  that  every  one  knew  that  he  had  taken 
it,  but  still  he  could  not  confess  that  he  had  it,  and  when 
they  said,  "Isn't  it  queer?  I  wonder  where  it's  gone!"  he 
had  answered,  "Yes,  isn't  it  queer?"  They  had  aban- 
doned the  search,  and  had  played  another  game,  but  all  the 
pleasure  of  the  party  was  lost  for  Henry.  He  kept  saying 
to  himself,  "You've  got  it.    You've  got  it!  .  .  ." 

He  had  hurried  home  after  the  party  was  over,  and  when 
he  reached  the  shrubbery,  he  dug  a  hole  and  buried  the 
ball  in  it.  He  had  closed  his  eyes  as  he  took  it  out  of  his 
pocket,  so  that  he  should  not  see  the  bright  colours  of  it, 
and  had  heaped  the  earth  on  to  it  as  if  he  could  not  con- 
ceal it  quickly  enough  .  .  .  but  burying  it  had  not  quieted 
his  mind.  He  felt,  whenever  he  met  Mr.  Maginn,  that  the 
vicar  looked  at  him  as  if  he  were  saying  to  himself,  "You 
stole  the  woollen  ball!  .  .  ."  At  the  end  of  the  month,  he 
had  gone  to  his  father  and  told  him  of  it,  and  Mr.  Quinn 
had  cocked  his  eye  at  him  for  a  moment  and  considered  the 
subject. 

"If  I  were  you,  Henry,"  he  had  said,  "I'd  dig  up  that 
ball  and  take  it  back  to  Mr.  Maginn  and  just  tell  him  about 
it!" 

Henry  could  remember  how  hard  it  had  been  to  do  that, 
how  he  had  loitered  outside  the  gates  of  the  vicarage  for 
an  hour,  trying  to  force  himself  to  go  up  to  the  door  and 
ask  for  the  vicar  .  .  .  and  how  kind  Mr.  Maginn  had  been 
when,  at  last,  he  had  made  his  confession  I 

Oh,  yes,  he  remembered !  .  .  . 


CHANGING  WINDS  489 

"You  were  a  funny  wee  lad,  Henry,"  Mr.  Quinn  said, 
taking  his  son's  hand  in  his.  "Always  imaginin'  things !" 
He  thought  for  a  second  or  two.  * '  I  suppose, ' '  he  went  on, 
"that's  what  makes  you  able  to  write  books  .  .  .  imaginin' 
things!    Ay,  that's  it!" 

They  sat  in  quietness  for  a  while,  and  then  Mr.  Quinn 
fell  asleep,  and  Henry  went  down  to  the  library  and  worked 
again  on  his  new  novel,  for  which  he  had  not  yet  found  a 
title;  and  in  his  sleep,  Mr.  Quinn  died. 


Henry  had  finished  a  chapter  of  the  book,  and  he  put 
down  his  pen,  and  yawned.  He  was  tired,  and  he  thought 
gratefully  of  tea.  Hannah  would  bring  a  tray  to  his 
father's  room.  There  would  be  little  soda  farls  and  toasted 
barn-brack,  and  perhaps  she  would  have  made  "slim-jim," 
and  there  would  be  newly-churned  butter  and  home-made 
jam,  which  Hannah,  in  her  Ulster  way,  would  call  "Pre- 
serve." .  .  . 

He  got  up  from  the  table  and  went  into  the  hall. 

"Will  tea  be  long,  Hannah?"  he  called  down  the  stairs, 
leading  to  the  kitchens, 

"Haven't  I  it  near  ready?"  she  answered. 

He  had  gone  up  the  staircase  at  a  run,  and  had  entered 
his  father's  room,  expecting  to  see  him  sitting  up.  .  .  . 

"Hilloa,"  he  said,  stopping  sharply,  "still  asleep!"  and 
he  went  out  of  the  room  and  called  softly  to  Hannah,  now 
coming  up  the  stairs,  to  take  the  tray  to  the  library.  "He's 
asleep,  Hannah!"  he  said  almost  in  a  whisper. 

"He's  never  asleep  at  this  hour,"  she  answered. 

And  somehow,  as  she  said  that,  he  knew.  He  went  back 
into  the  room  and  leant  over  his  father,  listening.  .  .  . 

"Is  he  dead,  Master  Henry?"  Hannah  said,  as  she  came 
into  the  room.  She  had  left  the  tray  on  a  table  on  the 
landing. 


440  CHANGING  WINDS 

Henry  straightened  himself  and  turned  to  her.  "Yes, 
Hannah ! "  he  said  quietly. 

The  old  woman  threw  her  apron  over  her  head  and  let  a 
great  cry  out  of  her.  * '  Och,  ochanee ! ' '  she  moaned,  ' '  Och, 
och,  ochanee!  ..." 


He  had  none  of  the  terror  he  had  had  when  Mrs.  Clut- 
ters lay  dead  in  the  Bloomsbury  house.  He  went  into  the 
room  and  stood  beside  his  father's  body.  The  finely 
moulded  face  had  a  proud  look  and  a  great  look  of  peace. 
"I  don't  feel  that  he's  dead,"  Henry  murmured  to  him- 
self.   "I  shall  never  feel  that  he's  dead!" 

**I  wasn't  with  him  enough,"  he  went  on.  *'I  left  him 
alone  too  often.  ..." 

Extraordinarily,  they  had  loved  each  other.  Under- 
neath all  that  roughness  of  speech  and  violence  of  state- 
ment, there  was  great  tenderness  and  understanding.  He 
spoke  his  mind,  and  more  than  his  mind,  but  he  was  gener- 
ous and  quick  to  retract  and  quicker  to  console.  "I'm  an 
Ulsterman,"  he  said  once.  "Ulster  to  the  marrow,  an' 
begod  I  'm  proud  of  it ! " 

"But  I'm  Irish  too,"  he  added,  turning  to  John  Marsh 
as  he  said  it,  fearful  lest  he  should  have  hurt  John's  feel- 
ings. "Begod,  it's  gran'  to  be  Irish.  I  pity  the  poor 
devils  that  aren't!  ..." 

He  was  a  great  lover  of  life,  exulting  in  his  strength  and 
vigour,  shouting  sometimes  for  the  joy  of  hearing  himself 
shout.  "And  shy,  too,"  Henry  murmured  to  himself,  "shy 
as  a  wren  about  intimate  things!" 

The  sight  of  his  father's  placid  face  comforted  him.  One 
might  cry  over  other  people,  but  not  over  him.  Henry 
felt  that  if  he  were  to  weep  for  his  father,  and  the  old  man, 
regaining  life  for  a  moment  were  to  open  his  eyes  and  see 
him,  he  would  shout  at  him,  "Good  God,  Henry,  what  are 


CHANGING  WINDS  44.1 

you  cryin'  about?     Go  out,  man,  an'  get  the  fresh  air 
about  you!  ..." 

He  put  his  hand  out  and  touched  the  dead  man. 

''All  right,  father!"  he  said  aloud.  .  .  . 


There  was  much  to  do  after  the  burial,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  beginning  of  the  Spring  that  Henry  left  Bally- 
martin.  He  had  completed  his  sixth  novel,  and  had  asked 
that  the  proofs  should  be  sent  to  him  as  speedily  as  possi- 
ble so  that  he  might  correct  them  before  he  left  Ireland, 
and  while  he  was  waiting  for  them,  he  had  travelled  to 
Dublin  for  a  few  days,  partly  on  business  connected  with 
his  estate  and  partly  to  see  his  friends.  Mr.  Quinn  had 
spent  a  great  deal  of  money  on  his  farming  experiments, 
the  more  freely  as  he  found  that  Henry's  books  brought 
him  an  increasing  income,  and  so  Henry  had  decided  to 
let  the  six  hundred  acres  which  Mr.  Quinn  himself  had 
farmed.  At  first,  he  had  thought  of  selling  the  land,  but 
it  seemed  to  him  that  his  father  would  have  liked  him  to 
keep  it,  and  so  he  did  not  do  so.  He  settled  his  affairs  with 
his  solicitors,  and  then  returned  to  Ballymartin ;  but  before 
he  did  so,  he  spent  an  evening  with  John  Marsh,  whom  he 
found  still  keenly  drilling, 

"But  why  are  you  drilling  now?"  he  asked.  "This 
hardly  seems  the  time  to  be  playing  at  soldiers,  John ! ' ' 

"I'm  not  playing,  Henry.    I  am  a  soldier!" 

It  was  difficult  to  remember  how  many  armies  there 
were  in  Ireland.  The  Ulster  Volunteers  still  sulked  in 
the  North.  The  National  Volunteers  had  split.  The 
politicians,  alarmed  at  the  growth  of  the  Volunteer  Move- 
ment among  their  followers,  had  swooped  down  on  the 
Volunteers  and  "captured"  them.  John  Marsh  and  Gal- 
way  and  their  friends  had  seceded,  and,  under  the  presi- 
dency of  a  professor  of  the  National  University,  John  Mac- 


442  CHANGING  WINDS 

Neill,  had  formed  a  new  body,  called  the  Irish  Volunteers. 
The  politicians,  failing  to  understand  the  temper  of  their 
time,  worked  to  discourage  the  growth  of  the  Volunteer 
Movement,  and  the  result  of  their  efforts  was  that  the  more 
enthusiastic  and  courageous  of  the  National  Volunteers 
seceded  to  the  Irish  Volunteers. 

"We're  growing  rapidly,"  John  said  to  Henry. 
"They're  flocking  out  of  the  Nationals  into  ours  as  hard 
as  they  can.  We've  got  Thomas  MacDonagh  and  Patrick 
Pearse  and  a  few  others  with  us,  and  we're  trying  to  link 
up  with  Larkins'  Citizen  Army.  Mineely's  urging  Con- 
nolly on  to  our  side,  but  Connolly's  more  interested  in  the 
industrial  fight  than  in  the  national  fight.  But  I  think 
we'll  get  him  over!" 

Their  objects  were  to  defend  themselves  from  attack  by 
the  Ulster  Volunteers  if  attack  were  made,  to  raise  a  rebel- 
lion if  the  Home  Rule  Bill  were  not  passed  into  law,  and 
to  resist  the  enactment  of  conscription  in  Ireland.  The 
burden  of  their  belief  was  still  the  fear  of  betrayal.  * '  But 
you're  going  to  get  Home  Rule,"  Henry  would  say  to  them, 
and  they  would  answer,  "We'll  believe  it  when  we  see  the 
King  opening  the  Parliament  in  College  Green.  Not  be- 
fore.   We  know  what  the  English  are  like.  ..." 

Henry  had  suggested  to  them  that  they  should  offer  the 
services  of  their  volunteers  to  the  Government  in  return 
for  the  immediate  enactment  of  the  Bill,  but  they  saw  no 
hope  of  such  an  offer  being  accepted  and  honoured.  "The 
minute  they'd  got  us  out  of  the  way,  they'd  break  their 
word,"  said  Galway.  "Our  only  hope  is  to  stay  here  and 
make  ourselves  as  formidable  as  we  can.  You  can't  per- 
suade the  English  to  do  the  decent  thing  .  .  .  you  can 
only  terrorise  them  into  it.  Look  at  the  way  the  Ulster 
people  have  frightened  the  wits  out  of  them !  .  .  . " 

"But  the  Ulster  people  haven't  frightened  the  wits  out 
of  them.  I  can't  understand  you  fellows!  You  sit  here 
with  preconceived  ideas  in  your  heads,  and  you  won't  check 


CHANGING  WINDS  443 

them  by  going  to  see  the  people  you're  theorising  about. 
You  keep  on  saying  the  same  thing  over  and  over  again, 
and  you  won't  listen  to  any  one  who  tells  you  that  you've 
got  hold  of  the  wrong  end  of  the  stick!  ..." 

**My  dear  Henry,"  said  John,  "our  history  is  enough 
for  us.  Even  since  the  war,  the  English  have  tried  to  be- 
little the  Irish.  They  've  done  the  most  inept,  small  things 
to  annoy  us.  They'd  have  got  far  more  men  from  Ireland 
than  they  have  done,  if  they'd  behaved  decently;  but  they 
couldn't.  They  simply  couldn't  do  the  decent  thing  to 
Ireland.  That's  their  nature.  ...  I'd  have  gone  my- 
self! .  .  ." 

"You?" 

"Yes.  I  think  the  Germans  are  in  the  wrong.  I  think 
they've  behaved  badly,  and  anyhow,  I  don't  like  their 
theory  of  life.  But  the  English  couldn't  treat  us  properly. 
We  wanted  an  Irish  Division,  with  Irish  officers,  and  Irish 
colours,  and  Irish  priests  .  .  .  but  no!  They  actually 
stopped  some  women  in  the  South  from  making  an  Irish 
flag  for  the  Irish  regiments!  .  .  .  What  are  you  to  do 
with  people  like  that.  If  they  aren't  treacherous,  they're 
so  stupid  that  it's  impossible  to  do  anything  with  them, 
and  we'd  much  better  be  separate  from  them!" 

"I  should  have  thought  that  Belgium  showed  the  folly 
of  that  sort  of  thing, ' '  said  Henry.  * '  A  little  country  can 't 
keep  itself  separate  from  a  big  one.  It'll  get  hurt  if  it 
does." 

"Belgium  fought,  didn't  she?"  John  answered.  "I 
daresay  we  should  get  beaten,  too,  but  we  could  fight, 
couldn't  we?" 

Henry  went  away  from  them  in  a  state  of  depression.  It 
seemed  impossible  to  persuade  them  to  behave  reasonably. 
Fixed  and  immovable  in  their  minds  was  this  belief  that 
England  would  use  them  in  her  need  .  .  .  and  then  betray 
them  when  her  need  was  satisfied. 

He  went  back  to  Ballymartin  and  corrected  his  proofs. 


444  CHANGING  WINDS 

* '  I  '11  go  over  to  England  next  week, ' '  he  said  to  himself 
when  he  had  revised  the  final  proofs  and  posted  them  to 
his  publishers. 


Mrs.  Graham  had  written  to  him  when  his  father  died. 
**My  dear  Henry,'*  she  wrote,  "1  know  how  you  must  feel 
at  the  death  of  your  father,  and  I  know,  too,  that  you  will 
not  wish  to  have  your  sorrow  intruded  on.  A  letter  is  a 
poor  thing,  hut,  my  dear,  I  send  you  all  my  sympathy.  I 
never  saw  your  father,  hut  Ninian  has  often  spoken  of  him 
to  me,  and  I  know  that  his  loss  must  he  almost  unhearahle 
to  you.  Perhaps  he  was  glad,  as  I  should  he  glad,  to  slip 
away  from  the  thought  and  memory  of  this  horrible  war, 
and  that  may  hring  comfort  to  you.  If  you  feel  lonely 
and  unhappy  at  home,  come  to  Boveyhayne  for  a  while. 
You  know  how  glad  we  shall  he  to  have  you.  It  is  very 
quiet  here  now,  more  than  a  hundred  of  our  men  have 
gone  into  the  Navy  or  the  Army,  and  the  poor  women  are 
full  of  anxiety  about  them.  Ninian  has  just  heen  moved  to 
Colchester.  I  daresay  he  has  written  to  you  before  this. 
If  you  would  like  to  come  to  Boveyhayne  just  send  a  tele- 
gram to  me.  That  will  he  sufficient.  Believe  me,  my  dear 
Henry,  Your  sincere  friend,  Janet  Graham." 

He  remembered  Mrs.  Graham's  letter  now,  and  he  went 
to  his  writing  desk  and  took  it  from  the  notes  of  condo- 
lence he  had  received.  Ninian  and  Gilbert  and  Roger  had 
written  to  him,  short,  abrupt  letters  that  he  knew  were  full 
of  kindly  concern  for  him,  and  Rachel  had  written  too. 
There  was  a  letter  from  Mary. 

Dear  Quinny,  you  don't  know  how  sorry  I  am.  It  must 
he  awful  to  lose  your  father  when  you  and  he  have  been 
such  chums.  I  can  only  just  remember  my  father,  and  how 
I  cried  when  he  was  taken  away,  and  so  I  know  how  hard 
it  must  he  for  you.     Your  friend,  Mary. 


CHANGING  WINDS  445 

He  read  Mrs.  Graham's  note,  and  Mary's  several  times, 
and  as  he  read  them,  he  had  a  longing  to  go  to  Boveyhayne 
again.  The  house  at  Ballymartin  was  so  lonely,  now  that 
his  father's  heavy  footsteps  no  longer  sounded  through  the 
hall.  Sometimes,  forgetting  that  he  was  dead,  Henry 
would  stop  suddenly  and  listen  as  if  he  were  listening  for 
his  father's  voice.  Since  his  return  from  Dublin,  he  had 
felt  his  loss  more  poignantly  than  he  had  before  he  went 
away.  In  the  old  days,  his  father  would  have  been  at 
the  station  to  meet  him.  There  would  have  been  a  hearty 
shout,  and.  .  .  . 

"I  must  go,"  he  said  to  himself,  **I  must  go.  I  can't 
bear  to  be  here  now." 

He  went  down  to  the  village  and  telegraphed  to  Mrs. 
Graham  telling  her  that  he  would  be  with  her  two  days 
later,  and  while  he  was  in  the  post  office,  the  Belfast  Evening 
Telegraph  came  in. 

"  I  '11  take  my  copy  with  me, ' '  he  said  to  the  post-mistress, 
and  he  opened  it  at  once  to  read  the  news.  There  was  a 
paragraph  in  a  corner  of  the  paper,  which  caught  his  eye 
at  once.  It  announced  the  death  in  action  of  Lord  Jasper 
Jayne. 

' '  My  God ! "  he  said,  crumpling  the  paper  as  he  gaped  at 
the  announcement. 

"Is  it  bad  news,  sir?"  the  post-mistress  asked. 

*'A  friend  of  mine,"  he  answered,  turning  to  her. 
"Killed  at  the  Front!" 

"Aw,  dear,"  she  said.  "Aw,  dear-a-dear!  An'  there'll 
be  plenty  more,  sir.  There's  young  fellas  away  from  the 
village,  sir.  My  own  nephew's  away.  You  mind  him, 
don't  you,  sir!    Peter  Logan!  ..." 

"Peter  Logan!" 

"Ay,  he  used  to  keep  the  forge  'til  he  married  Matt 
Hamilton's  niece,  an'  then  he  took  to  the  land.  Nothin' 
would  stop  him,  but  to  be  off.  Nothin'  at  all  would  stop 
him.    I  toul'  him  myself  the  Belgians  was  Catholics  an' 


446  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  Germans  was  Protestants,  but  nothin'  would  stop 
him.  .  .  ." 

"Sheila  Morgan's  husband,"  Henry  murmured. 

"Ay,"  she  answered,  "that  was  her  name  before  she 
was  married.  He's  trainin'  now,  an'  in  a  while,  I  sup- 
pose, he'll  be  off  like  the  rest  of  them.  Och,  oehanee,  sir, 
isn't  this  a  terr'ble  world,  wi'  nothin'  but  fightin'  an' 
wringlin '  ?    Will  that  be  all  you  're  wantin ',  sir  ? " 

"Yes,  thanks,"  he  said. 

Poor  old  Jimphy !  They  had  all  been  contemptuous  of 
him  .  .  .  and  now!  .  .  . 

Cecily  would  be  free  now!  Oh,  but  what  of  that? 
Poor  Jimphy !  He  had  not  wished  for  much  from  life  .  .  . 
and  sometimes  it  had  seemed  that  he  had  got  much  more 
than  he  needed.  ... 

"The  best  of  us  can't  do  more  than  he  did,"  Henry 
thought  as  he  walked  home.  "A  man  can't  give  more 
than  he's  got,  and  Jimphy 's  given  everything!" 


He  started  up,  and  looked  about  the  room,  and  while  he 
listened,  he  could  hear  the  big  clock  in  the  hall  sounding 
three  times.  He  was  shivering,  though  he  was  not  cold. 
In  his  dream,  he  had  seen  Jimphy,  all  bloody  and 
broken.  .  .  . 

"Oh,  my  God,  how  horrible!"  he  groaned. 

He  got  up  and  went  to  the  window,  but  he  could  not 
see  beyond  the  high  trees,  wTiich  swayed  and  moaned  and 
took  strange  shapes  in  the  wind.  His  dream  still  held 
his  mind,  and  as  he  looked  into  the  darkness  and  saw  the 
bending  branches  yielding  and  rebounding,  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  saw  the  soldiers  rushing  forward  and  heard 
their  cries,  hoarse  with  war  lust  or  stifled  by  the  blood  that 
gushed  from  their  mouths  as  they  staggered  and  fell  .  .  . 
and  as  he  had  seen  him  in  his  dream,  so  he  saw  Jimphy 
again,  running  forward  and  shouting  as  he  ran,  until  sud- 


CHANGING  WINDS  447 

denly,  with  a  queer  wrinkled  look  of  amazement  on  his 
face,  he  stopped,  and  then,  clasping  his  hands  to  his  head, 
tumbled  in  a  shapeless  heap  on  the  ground  .  .  .  but  now 
it  seemed  to  him  that  as  Jimphy  fell,  his  face  changed:  it 
was  no  longer  Jimphy 's  face,  but  his  own. 

"My  God,  it's  me!"  he  cried,  shrinking  away  from  the 
window,  and  clutching  at  the  curtains  as  if  he  would  cover 
himself  with  them.     "My  God,  it's  me!" 

He  shut  his  eyes  tightly  and  stumbled  back  to  bed.  He 
bruised  himself  against  a  chair,  but  he  was  afraid  to  open 
his  eyes,  and  he  rolled  into  bed,  covering  himself  com- 
pletely with  the  clothes,  and  buried  his  face  in  his  folded 
arms.  In  his  mind,  one  thought  hammered  insistently: 
/  must  live!    I  must  live!    I  must  live! 


8 

"I'm  run  down,"  he  said  to  himself  in  the  morning. 
"That's  what's  the  matter  with  me.    I'm  run  down!" 

His  father's  death  had  affected  him,  he  thought,  far 
more  than  he  had  imagined.  He  would  be  all  right  again 
after  a  rest  in  Devonshire.  It  was  natural  that  he  should 
be  in  a  nervous  state  .  .  .  quite  natural.  He  would  go 
straight  to  Boveyhayne  from  Liverpool.  He  could  catch 
the  Bournemouth  Express,  and  change  at  Templecombe. 
.  .  .  "That's  what  I'll  do,"  he  said,  and  he  hurried  down- 
stairs to  prepare  for  his  journey. 


THE  SEVENTH  CHAPTER 

1 

He  changed  his  mind  at  Liverpool.  ''I'll  go  to  London 
first,"  he  said,  "and  see  Roger  and  Rachel.  I  might  as 
well  hear  anything  there  is  to  hear ! ' '  And  so  he  had  tele- 
graphed to  Roger  who  met  him  at  Euston. 

"Gilbert's  going  out  in  a  few  days,"  Roger  said,  when 
they  had  greeted  each  other. 

"Out?" 

"Yes.    He's  going  to  the  Dardanelles!  .  .  .  This  job's 

serious,  Quinny!"  he  added  grimly.    "Our  two  months' 

estimate  was  a  bit  out,  wasn't  it?    I  suppose  you  haven't 

heard  from  Ninian  lately?     He  hasn't  written  to  me  for  a 

■good  while." 

"Not  lately,"  Henry  answered,  "but  I  shall  hear  of  him 
to-morrow  when  I  get  to  Boveyhayne.  I'll  write  and  let 
you  know!" 

"My  Big  Army  book's  gone  to  pot,  of  course!"  Roger 
went  on.    "At  present  anyhow!  ..." 

"The  War's  done  for  the  Improved  Tories,  I  suppose?" 

"Absolutely.  They've  all  enlisted.  Ashley  Earls  is  in 
the  R.A.M.C.  He  went  in  last  week.  He  couldn't  go  be- 
fore ...  he  was  ill.  You  remember  Ernest  Carr.  He 
tried  to  enlist  when  the  "War  began,  but  he  was  so  crippled 
with  rheumatism  that  they  hoofed  him  out.  *Well,  he's 
been  living  like  a  hermit  ever  since  to  get  himself  cured, 
and  he  says  he's  going  on  splendidly.  He  thinks  he'll  be 
able  to  join  before  long.  ..." 

"I  wonder  if  I  ought  to  join,"  he  went  on,  more  to 
himself  than  to  Henry.  "I've  thought  and  thought  about 
it  .  .  .  but  I  can't  make  up  my  mind.    I've  got  a  decent 

448 


CHANGING  WINDS  449 

connexion  at  the  Bar  now,  and  if  I  go  into  the  Army,  I 
shall  lose  it.  The  fellows  who  don't  go  will  get  my  work. 
And  if  the  War  lasts  as  long  as  Kitchener  reckons,  I  shall 
be  forgotten  by  the  time  I  get  back  .  .  .  and  I  shall  have 
to  begin  again  at  an  age  when  most  men  have  either  es- 
tablished themselves  or  cleared  out  of  the  profession  alto- 
gether. I  want  to  do  what's  right,  but  I  can't  reconcile 
my  two  duties,  Quinny.  I  've  a  duty  to  England,  of  course, 
but  I  think  I  have  a  bigger  duty  to  Kachel  and  Eleanor. 
If  they'd  only  conscript  us  all,  this  problem  wouldn't  arise 
.  .  .  not  so  acutely  anyhow.  I  suppose  the  Government  is 
having  a  pretty  hard  time,  but  they  do  seem  to  act  the  goat 
rather !  There 's  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  a  man 's  duty  to 
England,  but  very  little  talk  about  England's  duty  to  the 
man.  However!  ..."  He  did  not  finish  his  sentence, 
but  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked  away. 

"I  don't  feel  happy,"  he  went  on  after  a  while,  **when 
I  see  other  men  joining  up,  but  I  've  got  to  think  of  Rachel 
and  Eleanor.  .  .  .  When  I  was  going  to  meet  you,  Quinny, 
I  passed  a  chap  on  crutches.  His  leg  was  off !  .  .  .  He  made 
me  feel  damned  ashamed.  I  suppose  that's  why  they  let 
the  wounded  go  about  in  uniform  so  freely;  to  make  you 
feel  ashamed  of  yourself .  That's  what  I'm  afraid  of.  I'm 
afraid  I  shall  rush  off  to  the  recruiting  office  in  a  burst 
of  emotion  .  .  .  and  I  must  think  of  Rachel  and  Elea- 
nor! .  .  ." 

"I  don't  see  why  you  should  go  before  I  do,  Roger," 
Henry  interjected. 

** Are  you  going,  Quinny?" 

Henry  flushed.  It  hurt  him  that  there  should  be  any 
question  about  it. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

**I  don't  think  of  you  as  a  soldier,  Quinny!" 

"I  don't  think  of  myself  as  one!"  He  paused  for  a 
moment,  and  then,  impetuously,  he  turned  to  Roger. 

"Roger,"  he  said,  "do  you  think  I'm  .  .  .  neurotic? 
Would  you  say  I'm  .  .  .  well,  degenerate?" 


450  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Don't  be  an  ass,  Quinny!" 

"  I  'm  serious,  Roger.  I  'm  not  just  talking  about  myself, 
and  slopping  over!" 

*  *  You  're  highly  strung,  of  course,  but  I  shouldn  't  say  you 
were  neurotic.    You're  healthy  enough,  aren't  you?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I'm  healthy  enough,  but  I'm  such  a  damned 
coward,  Roger,  and  sometimes  some  perfectly  uncontrol- 
lable fear  seizes  me  .  .  .  silly  frights.  I  never  told  you, 
did  I,  how  scared  I  was  when  Mrs.  Clutters  died?  .  .  ." 
He  told  Roger  how  he  had  trembled  outside  the  door  of 
the  dead  woman's  room.  "Things  like  that  have  happened 
to  me  ever  since  I  was  a  kid.  I  make  up  my  mind  to  join 
the  Army,  and  then  I  suddenly  get  panicky,  and  I  can  al- 
most feel  myself  being  killed.  I'm  continually  seeing  the 
War  ...  me  in  it,  crouching  in  a  trench  waiting  for  the 
order  to  go  over,  and  trembling  with  fright  ...  so  fright- 
ened that  I  can't  do  anything  but  get  killed  .  .  .  and  it's 
worse  when  I  think  of  myself  killing  other  people  ...  I 
feel  sick  at  the  .thought  of  thrusting  a  bayonet  into  a 
man's  body  .  .  .  squelching  through  his  flesh  .  .  .  My 
God!  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  I  know,  Quinny!"  Roger  said.  "One  does  feel 
like  that.  But  when  you're  there,  you  don't  think  of  it 
.  .  .  you're  more  or  less  off  your  head  .  .  .  you  couldn't 
do  it  if  you  weren't.  They  work  you  up  to  a  kind  of 
frenzy,  and  then  you  .  .  .  just  let  yourself  go!" 

"But  afterwards?  Don't  you  think  a  man  'ud  go  mad 
afterwards  when  he  thought  of  it?  I  should.  I  know  I 
should.  I'd  lie  awake  at  night  and  see  the  men  I'd 
killed!  .  .  ." 

A  passenger  in  the  train  had  told  a  story  of  the  trenches 
to  Henry,  who  now  repeated  it  to  Roger. 

"One  of  our  men  got  hold  of  a  German  in  a  German 
trench,  and  he  bayonetted  him,  but  he  did  it  clumsily. 
There  wasn't  enough  room  to  kill  him  properly  ...  he 
couldn't  withdraw  the  bayonet  and  stick  it  in  again  and 
finish  the  man  .  .  .  and  there  they  were,  jammed  together 


CHANGING  WINDS  451 

.  .  .  and  the  German  was  squealing,  oh,  horribly  .  .  .  and 
our  men  had  to  come  and  haul  the  British  soldier  out  of 
the  trench.     He'd  gone  off  his  head!  ..." 

' '  One  oughtn  't  to  think  of  things  like  that,  Quinny ! ' ' 

''But  if  you  can't  help  it?  "What  terrifies  me  is  that  I 
might  turn  funk  ...  let  my  lot  down!  ..." 

"You  wouldn't.  You're  the  sort  that  imagines  the  worst 
and  does  the  best.  I  shouldn't  think  of  it  any  more  if  I 
were  you.  A  month  at  Boveyhayne'U  pull  you  all  right 
again.  ..." 

"It's  dying  that  I'm  most  afraid  of.  Some  of  these 
papers  write  columns  and  columns  of  stuff  about  'glorious 
deaths'  at  the  front,  but  it  doesn't  seem  very  glorious  to 
me  to  be  dead  before  you've  had  a  chance  to  do  your  job 
.  .  .  killed  like  that  .  .  .  blown  to  bits,  perhaps  ...  so 
that  they  can't  tell  which  is  you  and  which  is  some  one 
else!  .  .  ." 

Roger  nodded  his  head.  '  *  Our  journalists  contrive  to  see 
a  great  deal  of  glory  in  war  .  .  .  from  Fleet  Street,  don't 
they,  Quinny?" 

' '  Sometimes, ' '  Henry  proceeded,  '  *  I  think  that  the  worst 
kind  of  cowardice  is  to  love  life  too  much.  That 's  the  kind 
of  coward  I  am.  I  love  living.  I  used  to  cry  when  I  was 
a  kid  at  the  thought  that  I  might  die  and  not  be  able  to 
run  about  and  look  at  things  that  I  liked !  And  that  makes 
you  funky.  You  're  afraid  to  take  risks,  for  fear  you  should 
lose  your  life  and  have  to  give  up  the  pleasure  of  living. 
I  suppose  that's  what  the  Bible  means  when  it  says  that 
'  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life,  shall  find  it. '  This  hunt  for 
security  melts  the  marrow  in  your  backbone!  ..." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Roger.  "Where  you  go  wrong,  I  think, 
is  in  imagining  that  courage  consists  in  hurling  yourself 
recklessly  on  things  ...  in  not  earing  a  damn.  I  don't 
think  that  that's  courage  .  .  .  it's  simply  insensibility  .  .  . 
a  sort  of  permanent  imperceptiveness.  Really,  Quinny,  if 
you  don't  feel  fear,  there's  not  much  of  the  heroic  in  your 
acts.    That  kind  of  man  isn  't  much  braver  when  he 's  plung- 


462  CHANGING  WINDS 

ing  at  Germans  than  he  is  when  he's  plunging  at  a  motor- 
omnibus  or  getting  into  a  'scrum'  at  Rugger.  He  simply 
doesn't  see  any  difference.  It's  something  to  plunge  at, 
and  so  he  plunges.  I  haven't  much  faith  in  the  Don't- 
Care-a-Damn  Brigade.  They're  more  anxious  to  get  V.C's 
than  to  get  victories.  Their  courage  is  just  egoism  .  .  . 
they're  thinking,  not  of  their  country,  but  of  themselves. 
The  real  hero,  I  think,  is  the  man  who  makes  himself  do 
something  that  he's  afraid  to  do,  who  goes  into  a  thing, 
trembling  with  fright,  but  nevertheless  goes  into  it.  Did 
you  ever  meet  Leon  Lorthiois?"  he  said  quickly. 

"You  mean  the  French  painter  who  used  to  hang  about 
the  Cafe  Royal?"  Henry  replied. 

"Yes.    He  was  killed  the  other  day  in  France." 

'  *  I  hadn  't  heard.    Poor  chap ! ' ' 

"I  think  he  showed  extraordinary  courage.  He  started 
off  from  London  to  join  the  French  Army  ...  all  his 
friends  dined  him  jolly  well  .  .  .  and  wished  him  good- 
luck,  and  so  on,  and  then  he  went  off.  And  a  week  later, 
he  turned  up  again  with  a  cock-and-bull  story  about  having 
been  arrested  as  a  deserter.  He  said  he'd  escaped  from 
prison  and,  after  a  lot  of  difficulty  and  hardship,  got  back 
to  England.  But  he  hadn't  done  anything  of  the  sort. 
He'd  funked  it  at  the  last.  He  got  as  far  as  Dover,  and 
then  he  turned  back  .  .  .  frightened.  He  stayed  in  Lon- 
don for  a  while  .  .  .  and  then  he  tried  again  .  .  .  and  this 
time  he  didn't  funk  it!  They  say  he  was  fighting  splen- 
didly when  he  was  killed.  Men  have  got  the  V.C.  for  less 
heroic  behaviour  than  that.  He'd  conquered  himself.  I 
used  to  despise  that  fellow  because  he  wore  eccentric 
clothes  and  had  his  hair  cut  in  a  silly  fashion  .  .  .  but  I 
feel  proud  now  of  having  known  him ! ' ' 


Mary  met  him  at  Whitcombe,  and  they  walked  home, 
sending  his  trunk  and  portmanteau  on  in  the  carriage  with 


CHANGING  WINDS  4.53 

Widger.  He  had  anticipated  their  meeting  with  strange 
emotion,  feeling  as  if  he  were  returning  to  her  after  a  time 
of  misunderstanding,  richer  in  knowledge,  more  capable  of 
sympathy.  He  had  not  seen  her  since  the  first  performance 
of  "The  Magic  Casement,"  and  very  much  had  happened 
to  them  since  then.  His  desire  for  Cecily  seemed  to  have 
died.  He  had  not  troubled  to  visit  her  in  London  ...  he 
could  have  found  time  to  do  so,  had  he  been  anxious  to  see 
her  .  .  .  but  he  had  not  the  wish.  He  had  not  written  to 
her  about  Jimphy  ...  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  do 
that  .  .  .  and  the  thought  that  she  might  wish  to  see  him 
did  not  stir  his  mind.  He  felt  for  her  what  a  man  feels 
for  a  woman  he  has  loved,  but  now  loves  no  more :  neither 
like  nor  dislike,  but,  occasionally,  curiosity  that  did  not 
last  long.  She  moved  him  as  little  as  Sheila  Morgan  had 
done  when  he  saw  her  in  the  field  at  Ballymartin,  big  with 
child,  watching  her  husband  drilling. 

"There  are  permanent  things  in  one's  life,  and  there 
are  impermanent  things  .  .  .  and  you  can't  turn  the  one 
into  the  other,"  he  thought  to  himself,  as  the  little  branch 
railway  drove  down  the  Axe  Valley.  "I  wanted  Cecily 
.  .  .  and  then  I  didn't  want  her.  There's  no  more  to  be 
said  about  it  than  that ! ' ' 

There  were  very  few  people  waiting  on  the  platform 
when  the  train  drew  into  Whitcombe,  and  so  Henry  and 
Mary  saw  each  other  immediately,  and  when  he  saw  her, 
standing  on  the  windy  platform,  with  her  hand  to  her 
hat,  he  felt  more  powerfully  than  he  had  ever  felt  it,  his 
old  love  for  her  surging  through  him.  Nothing  could  ever 
divert  him  from  her  for  very  long  .  .  .  inevitably  he  would 
return  to  her  .  .  .  whatever  of  permanence  there  was  in 
his  life  was  centred  in  her.  He  led  her  out  of  the  station 
and  they  walked  along  the  road  at  the  top  of  the  shingle 
.  .  .  and  as  they  walked,  suddenly  he  turned  to  her  and, 
drawing  her  arm  in  his,  told  her  that  he  loved  her. 

'  *  I  haven 't  much  to  offer  you,  ^lary  ...  I  'm  a  poor  sort 
of  fellow  at  the  best  .  .  .  but  I  need  you,  and!  ..." 


454  CHANGING  WINDS 

She  did  not  answer,  but  she  looked  up  at  him  with  shin- 
ing eyes.  .  .  . 
"My  dear!"  he  said,  and  drew  her  very  close  to  him. 


They  went  up  the  path  over  the  red  cliffs  and  then 
climbed  the  steep  steps  that  led  to  the  top  of  the  White 
Cliff.  The  night  was  beginning  to  gather  her  clouds  about 
her,  but  still  they  did  not  hurry  homewards.  Far  out, 
they  could  see  the  trawlers  returning  to  the  Bay,  dipping 
and  rising  and  plunging  and  reeling  before  the  wind  as 
from  a  heavy  blow,  and  then,  when  it  seemed  that  they  must 
fall,  righting  themselves  and  moving  swiftly  homewards. 
Beneath  them,  the  sea  splashed  in  great  thick  waves  that 
tossed  their  spray  high  in  the  air,  and  the  gulls  and  jack- 
daws spun  round  and  up  and  down  or  huddled  themselves 
in  the  shelter  of  the  cliffs. 

**Mary!"  he  said,  putting  his  arm  about  her. 

"Yes,  Quinny!"  she  answered  so  quietly  that  he  could 
not  hear  her  above  the  noise  of  the  sea  and  the  wind. 

He  raised  her  lips  to  his  and  kissed  her. 

"My  dear!"  he  said  again. 


There  was  news  of  Ninian  for  them  when  they  reached 
the  Manor.  Mrs.  Graham,  with  his  letter  in  her  hand,  met 
them  at  the  door. 

"  He 's  coming  home  on  leave, ' '  she  said.  '  *  He  '11  be  here 
to-morrow  night.     Then  he 's  going  out  I  ..." 

She  turned  away  quickly,  after  she  had  spoken,  and  they 
followed  her  silently  into  the  drawing-room.  She  stood  for 
a  while  at  the  window,  gazing  down  the  avenue  where  the 
oaks  and  the  chestnuts  mingled  their  branches  and  made  a 
covering  for  passers-by. 

"I'll  just  go  upstairs,"  Henry  began,  b'ut  before  he  could 


CHANGING  WINDS  455 

leave  the  room,  Mrs.  Graham  turned  away  from  the  win- 
dow  and  went  to  him. 

"I've  put  you  in  your  old  room,  Henry,"  she  said. 
' '  How  are  you  ?    You  don 't  look  well ! ' ' 

"I'm  tired  .  .  .  but  I  shall  be  all  right  presently.  I'll 
just  go  upstairs  now!  ..." 

He  left  her  hurriedly,  for  INIary  was  anxious  to  tell  her 
mother  of  their  betrothal,  and  he  wished  her  to  know  as 
quickly  as  possible.  He  dallied  in  his  room  so  that  she 
might  have  plenty  of  time  in  which  to  learn  Mary's  news. 
He  sat  on  the  wide  window-seat  and  let  his  mind  roam  over 
his  memories.  It  was  in  this  room  that  he  had  first  told 
himself  that  he  loved  Mary  ...  it  was  at  this  very  window 
he  had  stood  while  he  resolved  that  he  would  marry  Sheila 
IMorgan,  and  again  had  considered  what  Ninian  and  Gil- 
bert had  said  about  men  who  marry  out  of  their  class.  Al- 
most he  expected  to  hear  the  door  opening  as  Gilbert  walked 
in,  just  as  he  had  done  then.  .  .  . 

"It's  no  good  mooning  like  this,"  he  said  to  himself, 
and  then  he  went  downstairs  a^ain. 

Mary  was  sitting  beside  her  mother,  holding  her  hand, 
and  as  he  entered  she  turned  to  look  at  him,  and  smiled 
so  that  he  knew  what  he  must  do,  and  so,  without  hesitation, 
he  crossed  the  room  to  Mrs.  Graham  and  kissed  her. 

"I'm  very  glad,  Henry!"  she  said.    "Sit  down  here!" 

She  moved  so  that  he  could  sit  beside  her,  and  when 
he  had  settled  himself,  she  put  her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
"It's  nice  to  have  you  back  again,"  she  said. 

They  spent  the  time  until  dinner  in  desultory  talk  that 
sometimes  lapsed  into  lengthy  silence.  A  high  wind  was 
blowing  up  from  ther  sea,  and  when  they  had  dined,  they 
drew  their  chairs  close  to  the  fire,  and  sat  quietly  in  the 
warmth  of  it.  They  could  hear  the  heavy  rustle  of  the 
leaves  as  the  trees  swayed  in  the  wind,  and  now  and  then 
raindrops  fell  down  the  chimney  and  sizzled  in  the  hot 
coals.  The  lamps  were  left  unlit,  and  the  firelight  made 
long  shadows  round  the   room,   flickering   over  the   (>ld 


456  CHANGING  WINDS 

polished  furniture  and  the  silverware  and  the  dim  por- 
traits of  dead  Grahams.  .  .  . 

Mary  moved  from  her  chair  and,  placing  a  cushion  on  the 
floor  between  Henry  and  her  mother,  she  sat  down  and 
leant  her  head  against  him.  He  bent  forward  slightly,  and 
placed  his  hand  on  her  shoulder,  and  as  he  did  so,  she  put 
hers  up  and  took  hold  of  it  and  so  they  sat  in  exquisite 
peace  and  quietness  until  the  rising  wind,  gathering  itself 
together  in  greater  strength,  flung  itself  heavily  on  the 
house  and  shook  it  roughly.  In  the  lull,  they  could  hear 
the  rain  beating  sharply  on  the  windows  .  .  .  and  as  they 
listened  to  the  noise  of  the  storm,  their  minds  wandered 
away,  and  in  their  imagination  they  could  see  the  soldiers 
in  France,  crouching  in  the  dark  trenches,  while  the  wind 
and  rain  beat  about  them  without  pity;  and  in  the  mind 
of  each  of  them,  probing  painfully,  was  this  persistent 
thought :  Here  we  are  in  this  comfort  .  .  .  and  there  they 
are  in  that  I 


When  Mary  had  gone  to  bed,  Mrs.  Graham  began  to  talk 
of  her  to  Henry. 

"I  always  knew  that  she  and  you  would  marry,  Henry," 
she  said,  "even  when  you  seemed  to  have  forgotten  about 
her.  You  .  .  .  you  were  very  fond  of  Lady  Cecily  Jayne, 
weren't  you,  Henry?"  He  nodded  his  head.  He  wanted 
to  explain  that  that  was  over  now,  that  it  had  been  a  pass- 
ing thing  that  had  no  durability,  but  he  could  not  make  the 
explanation,  and  so  he  did  not  say  anything.  "I  thought 
her  a  very  beautiful  woman,"  Mrs.  Graham  went  on.  "If 
I'd  been  a  boy  I  think  I  should  have  loved  her,  too.  Boys 
are  like  that!" 

She  was  so  gentle  and  kind  and  understanding  that  he 
lost  his  shyness,  and  he  confided  in  her  as  he  would  like  to 
have  confided  in  his  mother  if  she  had  been  alive, 

"Inside  me,"  he  said,  "I  always  loved  Mary,  even  when 


CHANGING  WINDS  457 

I  was  obsessed  by  ...  by  some  one  else.  I  can't  tell  you 
how  happy  I  am,  Mrs.  Graham.  I  feel  as  if  I'd  got  home 
after  a  long  and  bitter  journey  .  .  .  and  I  don't  want  to 
go  away  again  ever.  Just  to  look  at  Mary  seems  sufficient 
...  to  know  that  she's  there  .  .  .  that  I  can  put  out  my 
hand  and  touch  her.  ..." 

**Ninian  will  be  glad,  too,"  she  said,  speaking  quickly 
to  cover  up  the  difficulty  he  had  in  finishing  his  speech. 

"We've  been  awfully  good  friends,  we  four,"  he  replied, 
"Ninian  and  Roger  and  Gilbert  and  I.  I've  always  felt 
about  them  that  we  could  go  on  with  our  friendship  just 
where  we  left  off,  even  if  we  were  separated  from  each  other 
for  years.  We're  all  proud  of  each  other.  I  used  to  think, 
when  we  first  lived  in  that  house  in  Bloomsbury,  that  we  'd 
never  separate  .  .  .  that  we'd  form  a  sort  of  brotherhood 
of  work  and  friendship  .  .  .  Roger  always  preached  about 
The  Job  Well  Done  .  .  .  but,  of  course  that  was  impossible. 
We  were  bound  to  diverge  and  separate  ...  all  sorts  of 
things  compel  men  to  do  that.  Roger  married,  and  now 
Gilbert  and  Ninian  are  soldiers.  ..." 

**I  feel  proud  and  afraid,"  Mrs.  Graham  said.  **I'm 
glad  that  Ninian  has  joined  ...  I  think  I  should  hate  it 
if  he  hadn't  .  .  .  and  yet  I  wish  too  that  .  .  .  that  he 
weren't  in  it.  I'm  not  much  of  a  patriot,  Henry.  I  love 
my  son  more  than  I  love  my  country.  I  've  never  been  able 
to  understand  those  women  one  reads  about  who  offer  their 
sons  gladly.  I  don 't  offer  Ninian  gladly.  I  offer  him  .  .  . 
that's  all.  I  know  that  men  have  to  defend  their  country, 
and  I  love  England  and  I'm  proud  to  be  English  .  .  .  but 
when  I've  said  all  that,  it's  very  little  when  I  remember 
that  I  love  Ninian.  I  suppose  that  that's  a  selfish  thing  to 
say  .  .  .  but  I  don't  care  whether  it  is  or  not!  ..."  She 
stopped  for  a  moment  or  two,  and  then,  with  a  change  of 
voice,  she  said,  '*Do  you  think  the  war  will  last  long 
Henry?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  replied,  "Nobody  seems  able  to 
form  any  estimate.    When  it  began  I  thought  it  couldn't 


468  CHANGING  WINDS 

possibly  last  for  longer  than  two  months,  but  it  looks  like 
going  on  for  a  very  long  time  yet.  We  move  forward  and 
we  move  back  .  .  .  and  more  men  are  killed.  That's 
the  only  result  of  anything  at  present ! ' ' 

''It's  strange,"  she  murmured,  "how  indifferent  one  be- 
comes to  the  death  lists.  I  thought  my  heart  would  break 
when  I  saw  the  first  Devon  casualties,  but  now  one  simply 
doesn't  feel  anything  .  .  .  just  a  vague  regret.  Some- 
times I  think  I'm  growing  callous.  I  can't  feel  anything 
when  I  read  that  thousands  of  men  have  been  killed  and 
wounded.  It's  almost  as  if  I  were  saying  to  myself,  'Is 
that  all?  Weren't  there  more?  .  .  .'  I'm  not  the  only 
one  like  that.  People  don't  like  to  admit  it,  but  I've  heard 
people  confessing  ...  I  confess  myself  .  .  .  that  I  get  a 
.  .  .  kind  of  shocked  pleasure  out  of  a  big  casualty  list! 
.  .  .  Oh,  isn't  it  disgusting,  Henry?  One  gets  more  and 
more  coarse  every  day,  less  sensitive !  .  .  . " 

"Yes,"  he  said,  nodding  his  head  and  staring  into  the 
fire  which  was  now  burning  down. 

And  everywhere,  it  seemed  to  him,  that  coarsening  proc- 
ess was  going  on,  a  persistent  blunting  of  the  feelings, 
an  itching  desire  for  more  and  grimmer  and  bloodier  de- 
tails. One  saw  it  operating  in  kindly  women  who  visited 
soldiers  in  hospital  or  took  them  for  drives  ...  an  uncon- 
trollable wish  to  hear  the  ghastlier  things,  a  greedy  anxiety 
for  "experiences."  .  .  .  And  the  soldiers  loathed  these  pry- 
ing women  in  whom  lust  had  taken  a  new  turn:  the  love 
lust  had  turned  to  blood  lust,  and  those  who  had  formerly 
itched  for  men  (and  even  those  who  had  not)  itched  now 
for  horrors,  more  and  more  horrors.  .  .  .  "Tell  me,  now," 
they  would  say,  "did  you  kill  any  Germans?  I  suppose 
you  saw  some  awful  things.  ..." 

One  saw  this  coarsening  process  operating  on  men  with 
incredible  swiftness.  Their  tastes  became  edgeless  .  .  . 
they  entertained  themselves  with  big,  splashy  things,  asking 
for  noise  and  glare  and  an  inchoate  massing  of  colour,  and 
crowds  and  crowds  of  bare  girls.    There  was  a  demand  for 


CHANGING  WINDS  459 

Nakedness,  not  the  nakedness  of  cleanly,  natural  things, 
but  the  Nakedness  that  is  partly  covered,  the  Nakedness 
that  hints  at  Nakedness.  .  .  . 

''That's  inevitable,  I  suppose,"  Henry  thought  to  him- 
self. 

The  sloppier  journalists  made  a  cult  of  blasphemy  and 
foul  speech.  The  drill-sergeant  was  regarded  as  the  most 
entertaining  of  humourists,  and  decent  men  who  had  never 
done  more  than  the  normal  and  healthy  amount  of  swear- 
ing, began  to  believe  that  it  was  impossible  to  be  manly 
unless  one  bloodied  every  time  one  spoke:  and  swearing, 
which  is  a  good  and  wholesome  and  manly  and  picturesque 
thing,  suddenly  became  like  the  gibbering  of  an  idiot.  .  .  . 
One  was  led  to  believe  that  the  drill-sergeant  spent  his  time 
in  ordering  men  to  "bloody  well  form  bloody  fours!"  It 
was  immaterial  to  the  sloppier  journalists  that  the  drill- 
sergeant  did  not  do  anything  of  the  sort  .  .  .  and  so  the 
legend  grew,  of  a  great  Army  going  into  battle,  not  with 
the  old  English  war-cries  on  their  lips  or  with  new  cries 
as  noble,  but  with  "Bloody!"  for  their  watch-word,  and 
"Who  were  you  With  Last  Night?"  for  their  war-song.  .  .  . 


"I  often  wonder  what  things  will  be  like  when  the  war 
is  over,"  Mrs.  Graham  said.  "Men  can't  live  like  that 
without  some  permanent  effect.  Their  habits  will  be 
rougher,  more  elementary,  I  suppose,  and  they'll  value  life 
less  highly.  I  don't  see  how  they  can  help  it.  You  can't 
see  men  killed  in  that  careless  way  .  .  .  and  feel  any  sanc- 
tity about  life.  I  think  life  will  be  harsher  for  women 
after  the  war  than  it  was  before.  ..." 

She  remembered  that  Ninian's  father  had  always  de- 
clared that  the  Franco-German  War  had  brutalised  Ger- 
many. 

"He'd  lived  in  Germany  for  a  long  while,"  she  said, 


460  CHANGING  WINDS 

"and  people  admitted  that  Germany  had  changed  after  the 
War  .  .  .  grown  coarser  and  less  kindly !  .  .  . " 

They  talked  on  in  this  strain  until  the  clock  chimed 
twelve.  The  storm  still  blew  over  the  house,  but  the  rain 
had  ceased,  and  when  they  looked  out  of  the  window,  they 
could  see  a  rift  in  the  clouds,  through  which  the  moon  tore 
her  way. 

"Good-night,  Henry,"  she  said,  bending  towards  him, 
and  he  kissed  her  cheek  and  then  opened  the  door  for  her. 

* '  Good-night ! "  he  said. 


Ninian  came  home  on  the  next  day,  and  when  they  had 
told  him  the  news  of  Henry 's  engagement  to  Mary,  he  was 
full  of  cheers.  * '  Good ! "  he  said.  * '  Now  I  shall  be  able  to 
keep  you  in  order,  young  fellow.  I  shall  be  a  Rela- 
tion! .  .  ." 

"Oh,  I've  a  note  for  you,"  he  exclaimed,  as  they  drove 
home.  "It's  from  Gilbert.  I  met  him  in  town.  He'll 
be  on  his  way  out  before  I  get  back.  He'd  like  to  have 
come  down  here,  but  he  couldn't  manage  it.  He  sent  his 
love  to  you,  Mary,  and  you,  mother!  He  looks  jolly  fit 
,  .  .  never  seen  him  look  fitter!" 

He  handed  Gilbert's  note  to  Henry  who  put  it  in  his 
pocket.  He  would  read  it,  he  told  himself,  when  he  was 
alone. 

"We're  hopping  off  to  France  next  week,"  Ninian  said. 
"I  suppose,"  he  added,  turning  again  to  Henry,  "you  saw 
that  Jimphy  Jayne  was  killed.  Rough  luck,  wasn't  it?  I 
met  a  fellow  who  was  in  his  regiment  .  .  .  home  on  sick- 
leave  .  .  .  and  he  says  Jimphy  fought  like  fifty.  Gilbert 
says  Cecily's  bearing  up  wonderfully!" 

"He's  seen  her  then?"  Henry  asked. 

"Yes.  She  met  him  in  the  street  .  .  .  and  as  he  says, 
she's  bearing  up  wonderfully.  He  didn't  say  a  great  deal, 
but  I  imagine  he  didn't  admire  the  attitude  much.    Rum 


CHANGING  WINDS  461 

woman,  Cecily!"  He  had  grown  together  more  since  he 
had  been  to  South  America,  and  his  figure,  that  was  always 
loose-looking  and  a  little  hulking,  had  been  tightened  up 
by  his  training. 

"I  don't  like  your  moustache,  Ninian,"  his  mother  said, 
looking  with  disfavour  at  the  *' tooth-brush"  on  his  upper 
Up. 

"Nor  do  I,"  he  replied,  **but  you  have  to  wear  something 
on  your  face  .  .  .  they  don't  think  you  can  fight  if  you 
don 't  .  .  .  and  this  sort  of  thing  is  the  least  a  chap  can  do 
for  his  king  and  country.  When  are  you  two  going  to  get 
married  ? ' ' 

His  conversation  jumped  about  like  a  squib. 

"Oh,  not  yet,"  Mrs.  Graham  hurriedly  exclaimed. 
"There's  plenty  of  time.  ..." 

"I  should  like  to  get  married  at  once,"  said  Henry. 

"No,  not  yet,"  Mrs.  Graham  insisted.  "I  won't  be  left 
alone  yet  awhile.  ..." 

There  was  a  learned  discourse  from  Ninian  on  lengthy 
engagements  which  filled  the  time  until  the  carriage  drove 
up  to  Boveyhayne  House,  where  it  was  dropped  as  sud- 
denly as  it  was  begun. 

Indoors,  Henry  read  Gilbert's  letter. 

"My  dear  Quinny/'  he  wrote,  "I'm  writing  this  in  Soho 
with  a  pen  that  was  made  in  hell."  Then  there  was  a 
splutter  of  ink.  "There,"  the  letter  went  on,  "that's  the 
sort  of  thing  it  does.  I  believe  this  pen  was  brought  to 
Soho  by  the  first  Frenchman  to  open  a  cafe  here,  and  it's 
been  handed  down  from  proprietor  to  proprietor  ever  since. 
Ninian  and  I  have  been  dining  together,  and  as  he's  going 
down  to  Boveyhayne  to-morrow,  I  thought  I  might  as  well 
write  to  you  because  I  shan't  see  you  again  for  a  while. 
I'm  off  to  Gallipoli  in  a  day  or  two.  I  dined  with  Roger 
and  Rachel  last  night,  and  they  told  me  that  you  looked 
rather  pipped  before  you  went  to  Devonshire.  I  hope 
you'll  soon  be  all  right  again.    I  wish  we  could  have  met. 


462  CHANGING  WINDS 

hut  it  can'the  helped.  We  must  just  meet  when  we  can. 
It  seem^  a  very  long  while,  doesn't  it,  since  we  were  at 
Tre'Arrdur  together?  It'll  he  jolly  to  he  there  again  when 
the  war's  over.  You've  no  idea  how  interested  I've  he- 
come  in  this  job,  far  more  interested  than  I  ever  imagined 
I  should  he.  And  I've  changed  very  largely  in  my  atti- 
tude towards  the  War.  I  *  joined  up'  chiefly  hecause  I  felt 
an  uncontrollable  love  for  England  that  made  me  want  to 
do  things  that  were  repugnant  to  me,  and  also  because  I 
thought  that  the  Germans  had  behaved  very  scurvily  to  the 
Belgians;  hut  I  don't  feel  those  emotions  now  particularly. 
I  do,  of  course,  feel  proud  of  England,  and  the  sight  of  a 
hedgerow  makes  me  want  to  get  up  on  my  hindlegs  and 
cheer,  but  I've  got  something  else  now  that  had  never 
entered  into  my  calculations  at  all  .  .  .  and  that  is  an  ex- 
traordinary pride  in  my  regimerit  and  a  strong  desire  to 
be  worthy  of  it.  I've  just  been  reading  a  book  about  it,  a 
history  of  the  regiment,  and  it's  left  me  with  a  sense  of 
inheritance  .  .  .  as  I  should  feel  if  I  were  the  heir  of  an 
old  estate.  This  thing  has  a  history  and  a  tradition  which 
gives  me  a  feeling  of  pride  and,  perhaps  more  than  that, 
a  sense  of  responsibility.  .  .  .  'You  mustn't  let  it  down' 
I  keep  telling  myself,  and  I  feel  about  all  the  men  who 
served  in  the  regiment  from  the  time  it  was  formed,  that 
they  are  my  forefathers,  so  to  speak.  I  feel  their  ghosts 
about  me,  not  the  alarming  sort  of  spook,  but  friendly, 
sympathetic  ghosts,  and  I  imagine  them  saying  to  me, 
'Sergeant  Farlow,  you've  got  to  live  up  to  us!'  I've  not 
told  any  one  else  about  this,  because  I'm  afraid  of  being 
called  a  sloppy  ass  .  .  .  and  perhaps  it  is  sloppy  .  .  .  hut 
you'll  understand  what  I  feel,  so  I  don't  mind  telling  yo^i. 
I  shall  write  to  you  as  often  as  I  can,  and  you  must  write 
to  me  and  tell  me  what  you're  doing.  I  wish  toe  could  have 
gone  out  together.  Sometimes  I  get  a  creepy-crawly  sort 
of  feeling  that  nearly  turns  me  inside  out  .  .  .  a  feeling 
that  this  is  good-bye  for  good,  but  I  suppose  most  fellows 
get  that  just  before  they  go  out.    I  began  another  play 


CHANGING  WINDS  463 

about  a  month  ago,  and  I  think  it  will  be  good,  much  better 
than  anything  else  I've  done.  I  wish  I  had  time  to  finish 
it  before  leaving  home.  This  is  rather  a  mess  of  a  letter, 
and  I  must  chuck  it  now,  for  Ninian  is  getting  tied  up  in 
an  effort  to  cultivate  a  cordial  understanding  with  the 
waiter,  and  I  shall  have  to  rescue  them  both  or  there'll  be 
a  rupture  between  the  Allies.  Give  my  love  to  Mary  and 
Mrs.  Graham.  I'd  have  gone  to  Boveyhayne  to  see  them 
if  I  possibly  could,  tell  them.    So  long,  old  chap! 

"Yours  Ever, 

'' Gilbert  Farlow." 

He  showed  the  letter  to  Mary,  and  as  he  gave  it  to  her, 
he  felt  a  new  pleasure  in  his  love  for  her,  the  pleasure 
of  sharing  things,  of  having  confidences  together. 

"Gilbert's  a  dear,"  she  said,  when  she  had  finished  read- 
ing the  letter.  "It  would  be  awfully  hard  not  to  be  fond 
of  him!" 

He  took  the  letter  and  put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  then  he 
put  his  arm  in  Mary 's  and  led  her  to  the  garden  where  the 
spring  flowers  were  blowing.  "I've  had  great  luck,"  he 
said.  * '  I  have  Gilbert  for  my  friend  and  I  have  you,  Mary, 
to  be  my  wife,  and  I  don 't  know  that  I  deserve  either ! '  * 

"Silly  Quinny!"  she  said  affectionately. 

8 

They  spent  the  days  of  Ninian 's  leave  in  visiting  all  the 
familiar  places  about  Boveyhayne.  It  seemed  almost  that 
Ninian  could  not  see  enough  of  them.  He  would  rise  early, 
rousing  them  with  insistent  shouts,  and  urge  them  to  make 
haste  and  prepare  for  a  long  walk;  and  all  day  they 
tramped  along  the  roads,  up  the  combes  and  down  the 
combes,  over  commons,  through  woods,  lingering  in  the 
lanes  to  pluck  the  wildflowers  that  grew  profusely  in  the 
hedgerows,  or  listening  to  the  mating  birds  that  flew  con- 
tinually about  them.    They  walked  along  the  Roman  Road 


464  CHANGING  WINDS 

to  Lyme  Regis  in  the  east,  and  along  the  Roman  Road  again 
to  Sidmouth  in  the  west,  returning  in  the  dark,  tired  and 
hungry;  and  sometimes  they  went  into  the  roadside  pub- 
lic-houses because  of  the  warm,  comfortable  smell  they  had, 
and  because  they  liked  to  listen  to  the  slow,  burring  voices 
of  the  labourers  as  they  drank  their  beer  and  cider  and 
talked  of  the  day's  doings.  There  was  a  corner  of  the 
Common,  near  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  where  they  could  lie 
when  the  sun  was  warm,  and  look  out  over  the  Channel  to 
where  the  Brixham  trawlers  lay  in  a  line  along  the  horizon. 
Westwards,  the  red  clay  cliffs  ran  up  and  down  in  steeply 
undulating  lines  as  far  as  they  could  see,  and  near  at  hand, 
in  a  wide  valley  beyond  the  gloomy  combe  that  leads  to 
Salcombe  Regis,  they  could  very  plainly  see  the  front  of 
Sidmouth.  In  the  east,  they  could  look  up  the  wooded 
valley  of  the  Axe,  and,  beyond  the  vari-coloured  Haven 
Cliff,  see  the  Dorset  Hills  that  huddled  Charmouth  and 
Bridport,  and  further  out,  like  an  island  in  mist,  the  high 
reach  of  Portland  Bill.  .  .  . 

In  this  corner  of  the  Common,  they  spent  the  last  day 
of  Ninian's  leave.  Behind  them  was  a  great  stretch  of 
gorse  in  bloom,  and  brown  bracken,  mingled  with  new  green 
fronds,  from  which  larks  sprang  up,  singing  and  soaring. 
They  had  eaten  sandwiches  on  the  Common,  and  in  the 
afternoon,  had  climbed  down  the  steep  side  of  the  combe  to 
a  farm  to  tea,  and,  then  they  had  climbed  up  the  combe 
again,  and  had  sat  in  their  corner,  watching  the  Boveyhayne 
trawlers  blowing  home ;  and  as  they  sat  there,  they  became 
very  quiet.  In  this  solitude  and  peace,  the  outrage  of  war 
seemed  to  have  no  meaning.  .  .  . 

Ninian  stirred  slightly.  He  raised  himself  on  his  elbow 
and  looked  about  him.  .  .  . 

"Let's  go  home,"  he  said  quickly,  getting  up  as  he 
spoke.  He  went  to  his  mother  and  helped  her  to  rise,  and 
when  she  was  standing  up,  he  took  her  arm  and  drew  it 
through  his,  and  led  her  towards  the  village ;  and  when  they 
had  gone  up  the  grassy  path  through  the  bracken,  and  were 


CHANGING  WINDS  466 

well  on  the  way  home,  Mary  and  Henry  followed  after 
them. 

"Ninian  feels  things  more  than  he  admits,"  Henry  whis- 
pered to  her. 


They  made  poor  attempts  at  gaiety  that  night,  and 
Ninian  tried  to  make  oratory  about  Engineers.  He  divided 
his  discourse  into  two  parts:  one  insisting  that  the  war 
would  be  won  by  engineering  feats ;  the  other  insisting  that 
it  might  be  lost  because  of  the  contempt  of  most  of  the 
military  men  for  Engineers,  which,  Ninian  said,  was  an- 
other word  for  Brains.  "They  don't  think  we're  gentle- 
men," he  said.  "I  met  a  *  dug-out'  last  week,  and  he  was 
snorting  about  the  Engineers  .  .  .  hadn't  a  happorth  of 
brains  in  his  skull,  the  ass  .  .  .  and  I  asked  him  why  it 
was  that  he  thought  so  little  of  them>  Do  you  know  what 
he  said?  'Oh,'  says  he,  'they're  always  readin'  books  an' 
...  an'  inventin'  things!'  That's  the  kind  of  chap  we've 
got  to  endure!  Isn't  he  priceless?  I  very  nearly  told 
him  he  ought  to  be  embalmed  .  .  .  only  I  thought  to  myself 
he'd  think  that  was  the  sort  of  remark  an  engineer  would 
make.  Plucky  old  devil,  of  course,  but  nothing  in  his 
head.  If  you  shook  it,  it  wouldn  't  rattle !  ...  He  seemed 
to  think  he'd  only  got  to  say,  'Now,  then,  boys,  give  'em 
hell!'  and  the  Germans  'ud  just  melt  away.  As  I  said 
afterwards,  it's  all  very  well,  to  say  'Give  'em  hell,'  but 
you  can't  give  it  to  'em,  if  you  don't  know  what  it's 
like!  .  .  ." 

But  the  oratory  failed,  and  the  gaiety  fizzled  out,  and 
after  a  while  Mrs.  Graham,  finding  the  silence  and  her 
thoughts  insupportable,  left  them  and  went  to  bed. 

"Come  and  say  'Good-night'  to  me,"  she  said  to  Ninian 
as  she  left  the  room. 

"All  right,  mother!"  he  answered. 

He  tried  to  take  up  the  theme  of  engineering  again. 


466  CHANGING  WINDS 

"It's  no  good  trying  to  chivy  Germans  in  the  way  you 
chivy  foxes.  You've  got  to  think,  and  think  hard.  That's 
where  we  come  in!  .  .  ."  But  it  was  a  poor  effort,  and  he 
abandoned  it  quickly. 

"I  think,"  he  said,  "I'll  go  up  and  say  'Good-night'  to 
mother.    You  two '11  see  to  things !  ..." 

"Righto,  Ninian,"  Henry  answered. 

Mary  came  and  sat  beside  him  when  Ninian  had  gone. 

"I'm  trying  to  feel  proud,"  she  said,  "but.  ..." 

"Don't  you  feel  proud?"  he  asked,  fondling  her. 

"No.  I'm  anxious.  It  would  hurt  mother  terribly  if 
anything  were  to  happen  to  Ninian,"  she  answered. 

"Nothing  will  happen  to  him.  ..." 

One  said  that  just  because  it  was  comforting. 

"Quinny,"  she  said,  drawing  herself  up  to  him  and 
leaning  her  elbows  on  his  knees,  *  *  do  you  love  me  really  and 
truly?  .  .  ." 

He  put  his  arms  quickly  about  her,  and  drew  her  close 
to  him,  and  kissed  her  passionately. 

"But  you  haven't  loved  only  me,"  she  said,  freeing 
herself. 

He  did  not  answer. 

"I've  never  loved  any  one  but  you,"  she  went  on.  "I 
haven't  been  able  to  love  any  one  but  you.  I've  tried  to 
love  some  one  else  .  .  .  tried  very  hard ! ' ' 

"Who  was  it?"  he  asked. 

"No  one  you  knew.  It  was  after  I'd  seen  you  with  Lady 
Cecily  Jayne.    I  was  jealous,  Quinny!  .  .  ." 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  flattered  by  the  oneness  of  her  love 
for  him. 

"But  I  couldn't.  I  just  couldn 't.  I  suppose  I'm  rather 
limited!"  She  made  a  wry  smile  as  she  spoke.  "'I  felt 
stupid  beside  her.  She  talked  so  easily,  and  I  couldn't 
think  of  anything  to  say.  You  must  have  thought  I  was  a 
fool,  Quinny!" 

"No,  Mary!  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  but  I  was.    I  got  stupider  and  stupider,  and  the 


CHANGING  WINDS  467 

more  I  thought  of  how  stupid  I  was,  the  stupider  I  got.  1 
could  have  cried  with  vexation.  Do  you  remember  Gil- 
bert's party  ...  I  mean  when  it  was  over  and  we  were 
going  home?" 

"Yes." 

**I  prayed  that  you'd  come  with  mother  and  me.  I 
thought  Ninian  would  go  with  mother,  and  you'd  go  with 
me  .  .  .  but  you  didn  't ! " 

*'I  remember,"  he  answered.  "I  wanted  to  go  with 
you " 

"Why  didn't  you?" 

"Some  one  came  up  ...  I've  forgotten  .  .  .  something 
happened,  and  so  I  didn 't.     I  wanted  to,  Mary ! ' ' 

* '  I  thought  then  that  you  and  I  would  never !  .  .  .  "Why 
did  you  ask  me  to  marry  you,  Quinny  ? ' ' 

"Because  I  love  you,  Mary.  ..." 

"But  .  .  .  did  you  mean  to  marry  me  or  did  you  just 
.  .  .  sort  of  .  .  .  not  thinking,  I  mean!  .  .  .  Oh,  it's 
awf 'Uy  hard  to  say  what's  in  my  mind,  but  I  want  to  know 
whether  you  love  me  really  and  truly,  Quinny,  or  only 
just  asked  me  to  marry  you  impulsively  .  .  .  when  you 
weren't  thinking?" 

"I  came  here  loving  you,  Mary.  I  didn't  mean  to  tell 
you  about  it  so  soon  as  I  did  .  .  .  that  was  impulse  ...  I 
couldn't  help  it  .  .  .  the  moment  I  saw  you  as  the  train 
came  into  the  station,  I  felt  that  I  must  ask  you  at  once. 
It  would  have  been  rather  awkward  if  you'd  said,  'No.'  I 
suppose  I  should  have  had  to  go  straight  back  to  London 
again!  .  .  .  But  I  came  here  loving  you.  I've  loved  you 
all  the  time  .  .  .  even  when  I  wasn't  thinking  of  you,  but 
of  some  one  else.  I've  come  back  to  you  always  in  my 
thoughts!  ..." 

"Do  you  remember,"  she  said,  "the  first  time  you  asked 
me  to  marry  you,  Quinny?" 

"Yes." 

"I've  meant  it  ever  since  then.  You  hurt  me  when  you 
went  to  Ireland  and  didn 't  answer  my  letter.  ..." 


468  CHANGING  WINDS 

"I  know!"  he  exclaimed. 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"I  just  know.  And  when  I  talked  to  you  about  it,  that 
time  in  Bloomsbury  when  you  and  Mrs.  Graham  and  Rachel 
came  to  dine  with  us.  .  .  ." 

"I  made  fun  of  it,  didn't  I?  But  I  had  to,  Quinny, 
You'd  been  unkind,  and  I  had  to  make  some  sort  of  a  show, 
hadn't  I?  I  had  to  keep  my  pride  if  I  couldn't  keep  any- 
thing else." 

"We've  been  stupid,  both  of  us." 

"You  have,"  she  retorted. 

"I  have,"  he  said.  "I've  been  frightfully  stupid. 
That's  what  puzzles  me.  I'm  clear-sighted  enough  about 
the  people  I  make  up  in  my  books.  The  critics  insist  on  my 
understanding  of  human  motives,  and  I  know  that  I  have 
that  understanding.  I  can  get  right  inside  my  characters, 
and  I  know  them  through  and  through  .  .  .  but  I'm  as 
stupid  as  a  sheep  about  myself  and  about  you  and  .  .  . 
living  people.  I  suppose  I  exhaust  all  my  understanding 
on  my  books!" 

"Well,  it  doesn't  matter,  Quinny,  dear,"  she  said.  "I'll 
understand  for  the  two  of  us!  .  .  ." 


10 

In  the  morning,  Ninian  went  away.  They  drove  to  Whit- 
combe  Station  with  him  and  saw  him  off.  They  had  been 
anxious  about  Mrs.  Graham  and  dubious  of  her  endurance 
at  the  moment  of  parting  .  .  .  but  she  had  insisted  on  going 
to  the  station,  and  so  they  had  not  persisted  in  their  per- 
suasions.    And  she  had  held  herself  proudly. 

"Good-bye,  my  dear,"  she  said,  hugging  Ninian  tightly, 
and  smiling  at  him.    "You'll  write  to  me  .  .  .  often!" 

'  *  Every  day, ' '  he  replied.     "  If  I  can ! " 

It  had  been  difficult  to  fill  in  the  few  moments  between 
their  arrival  at  the  station  and  the  departure  of  the  train. 


CHANGING  WINDS  469 

They  said  little  empty  things  .  .  .  repeated  them  .  .  .  and 
then  were  silent.  .  .  . 

Then  the  train  began  to  move,  and  Mrs.  Graham,  snatch- 
ing quickly  at  him,  had  kissed  him  as  he  was  carried  off. 
They  stood  at  the  end  of  the  platform,  watching  the  train 
driving  quickly  up  the  valley  until  it  stopped  at  Coly. 
Then  they  heard  the  whistle  of  the  engine,  and  saw  the 
smoke  curling  up,  and  again  the  train  moved  on,  and  then 
they  could  see  it  no  more. 

' '  We  11  walk  home, ' '  Mary  whispered  to  Henry.  ' '  She  'd 
much  better  go  back  by  herself!" 

And  so  they  left  her,  still  smiling,  though  now  and  then, 
her  hands  trembled. 


THE  EIGHTH  CHAPTER 


A.  MONTH  after  Gilbert  and  Ninian  had  left  England, 
Henry  went  to  London  for  a  couple  of  days  on  business 
connected  with  his  books.  Mrs.  Graham  had  asked  him  to 
return  to  Boveyhayne  instead  of  going  to  Ireland,  until  he 
was  fully  well  again,  and  he  had  gladly  accepted  her  invi- 
tation. He  had  written  a  few  pages  of  a  new  book  that 
pleased  him,  and  he  was  anxious  to  complete  the  story  be- 
fore he  entered  the  Army.  Writing  irked  him,  but  he  could 
not  abstain  from  writing  .  .  .  some  demon  drove  him  to  it, 
forcing  him  to  his  desk  when  all  his  desire  was  to  be  out 
in  the  lanes  with  Mary  or  sailing  about  the  bay  with  Tom 
Yeo  and  Jim  Rattenbury.  There  were  times  when  he 
loathed  this  labour  of  writing  which  came  between  him  and 
the  pleasure  of  living,  so  that  he  sometimes  saw  fox- 
gloves and  bluebells  and  primroses  and  violets  and  wild 
daifodils,  not  as  the  careless  beauty  of  a  Devonshire  lane, 
but  as  picturesque  material  for  a  description  in  one  of  his 
chapters.  And  his  beastly  creatures  would  not  lie  still  in 
his  study  until  he  returned  to  attend  to  them,  but  insisted 
on  following  him  wherever  he  went,  thrusting  themselves 
upon  his  notice  continually,  whether  the  time  was  oppor- 
tune or  not.  He  would  walk  with  Mary,  perhaps  to  Hang- 
man's Stone,  and  suddenly  he  would  hear  her  saying, 
' '  What  are  you  thinking  of,  Quinny  ? ' '  and  he  would  come 
out  of  his  silence  with  a  start,  and  say,  "Oh,  my  book, 
Mary!"  and  find  that  he  had  been  walking  by  her  side, 
unaware  of  her,  unaware  of  anything  but  these  abominable 
paper   people   who   deluged   his   mind   with   their   being 

470 


CHANGING  WINDS  4T1 

.  ,  .  and  when  they  got  to  Hangman's  Stone,  he  thought 
always,  ' '  What  a  good  title  for  a  story ! ' ' 

"But  I  can't  leave  it  alone,"  he  would  say  to  himself, 
and  then  he  would  compare  himself  to  a  drunkard,  eager 
to  be  quit  of  his  drink,  but  unable  to  conquer  his  craving. 
And  he  had  pride  in  it,  too.  That  was  what  distinguished 
him  from  the  drunkard  and  the  drug-taker.  They  had  no 
pride  in  their  drunkenness  or  their  drugged  senses,  but  he 
had  pride  in  his  books,  and  constantly  in  his  mind  was 
the  desire  that  before  he  joined  the  Army,  he  should  leave 
another  book  behind  him,  that  his  life  should  be  expressed 
substantially  in  a  number  of  novels,  so  that  if  he  should  die 
in  battle,  he  would  have  left  something  by  which  men 
might  remember  him. 

He  had  talked  to  Mary  about  his  position,  but  she  had 
insisted  that  this  was  a  decision  he  must  make  for  himself. 
Her  view,  and  the  view  of  her  mother,  was  that  a  woman 
ought  not  to  take  the  responsibility  of  urging  a  man  to 
endure  the  horror  and  danger  of  such  a  war  as  this. 
"Women  can't  go  into  the  trenches  themselves,"  Mrs.  Gra- 
ham said,  "and  they've  no  right  to  ask  any  one  else  to  go !" 
That  was  what  his  father  had  said. 

"But  somebody  must  go,  and  there  are  people  who  have 
to  be  told  about  things,"  he  objected. 

"I  think,"  Mrs.  Graham  answered,  "I'd  rather  be  killed 
than  be  defended  by  a  man  who  was  white-feathered  into 
doing  it,  and  I  know  I  should  never  be  happy  again  if  I  'd 
nagged  at  a  man  until  he  joined  the  Army,  and  he  was 
killed.  ...  I  think  that  some  women  will  have  haunted 
minds  after  this  War!" 

"It's  the  Government's  job  to  say  who  shall  go  and  who 
shall  stay,"  Mary  added.  "That's  what  they're  there  for, 
and  it's  mean  of  them  to  shuffle  out  of  their  responsibility 
and  let  a  lot  of  flappers  and  old  maids  do  their  work  for 
them!" 

Then  their  talk  had  taken  a  new  turn,  and  in  the  end  it 
was  settled  that  Mary  and  he  were  to  be  married  when  the 


47«  CHANGING  WINDS 

new  book  was  finished,  and  then  he  would  join  the  Army. 
There  had  been  a  difficulty  with  Mrs.  Graham,  but  Mary 
over-ruled  her. 

"I  won't  let  him  go  until  he  marries  me,"  she  said,  shut- 
ting her  lips  firmly  and  looking  very  resolutely  at  her 
mother. 

"Roger  and  I  might  go  in  together,"  Henry  suggested. 
"I  had  a  letter  from  him  saying  he  thought  he  would  join 
soon.    Rachel's  going  to  live  in  the  country.  ..." 

"She  can  come  here  if  she  likes,"  Mrs.  Graham  inter- 
jected. "You'd  better  tell  her  that  when  you  go  to  town. 
She  can  stay  with  us  until  the  war's  over.  ..." 

"There's  the  baby,  of  course!"  Henry  reminded  her. 

"1  know,"  she  answered.  "I'd  like  to  hear  a  baby  in 
this  house  again.  ..." 


London  was  strangely  sensitive,  easily  exalted,  easily  de- 
pressed, listening  avidly  to  rumours,  even  when  they  were 
clearly  absurd.  It  was  the  least  English  of  the  cities,  far, 
far  less  English  than  the  villages  and  country  towns.  Lon- 
don's nerves  were  often  jangled,  but  the  nerves  of  Bovey- 
hayne  were  never  jangled.  London  jumped  up  and  down 
like  a  Jack-in-the-box,  but  Boveyhayne  moved  steadily  on. 
There  were  times  when  London  was  so  un-English  as  to  be- 
lieve that  England  might  be  beaten  .  .  .  but  Boveyhayne 
never  imagined  that  for  a  moment.  Boveyhayne  did  not 
think  of  the  defeat  of  England,  because  it  had  never  oc- 
curred to  Boveyhayne  that  England  could  be  beaten.  Old 
Widger  would  sometimes  say,  "They  Germans  be  cun- 
ning!" or  "Us '11  'ave  to  'it  a  bit  'arder  avore  us  knocks 
'un  out!"  but  Old  Widger  never  imagined  for  a  moment 
that  "  'un,"  as  he  always  called  the  Kaiser,  would  not 
sooner  or  later  get  knocked  out,  and  so  he  went  on  with 
his  work,  pausing  now  and  then  to  say,  "  'Er's  a  reg'lar 
cunnin'  old  varmint,   'er  be!"  almost  with  as  much  ad- 


CHANGING  WINDS  473 

miration  as  if  he  were  talking  of  a  fox  or  an  otter  that  had 
eluded  the  hounds  many  times.  But  the  cunningest  fox 
falls  to  the  hounds  in  the  end  of  some  chase,  and  Widger 
did  not  doubt  that  "Keyser"  would  fall,  too.  Bovey- 
hayne,  was  very  English  in  its  reserves  and  its  dignity. 
London  might  squeal  for  reprisals,  but  Boveyhayne  never 
squealed.  When  the  Germans  torpedoed  a  merchant  ship. 
Old  "Widger  said,  "It  hain't  very  manly,  be  it,  sir?"  and 
that  was  all.  Old  Widger  was  not  indifferent  or  without 
imagination  .  .  .  but  he  had  self-respect,  and  he  could  not 
squeal  like  a  frantic  rabbit  even  when  he  was  in  pain.  He 
could  hit,  and  he  could  hit  hard,  but  he  did  not  care  to 
claw  and  scratch  and  bite!  .  .  . 

Henry  disliked  London  then,  but  he  comforted  himself 
with  the  thought  that  it  resembled  all  capital  cities,  that 
its  population  was  not  a  native  population,  but  one  that 
shifted  and  changed  and  had  no  tradition.  Old  Widger 
had  lived  in  the  same  cottage  all  his  life:  his  father  had 
lived  there  too ;  and  his  family,  for  several  generations  be- 
fore his  father,  had  lived  and  worked  in  Boveyhayne.  They 
had  habits  and  customs  so  old  that  no  one  knew  the  mean- 
ing of  them.  When  Widger 's  wife  died,  Widger  and  his 
family  had  gone  to  church  on  the  Sunday  after  her  burial, 
as  all  the  Boveyhayne  bereaved  do,  and  had  sat  through 
the  service,  taking  no  part  in  it,  neither  kneeling  to  pray 
nor  rising  to  sing  nor  responding  to  the  invocations.  But 
Old  Widger  did  not  know  why  he  had  behaved  in  that 
fashion,  nor  did  any  one  in  Boveyhayne.  "Don't  seem 
no  sense  in  it,"  he  said,  but  nevertheless  he  did  it,  and 
nothing  on  earth  would  have  prevented  him  from  doing 
it.     It  was  the  custom.  .  .  . 

But  there  was  no  custom  in  London.  There  were  no 
habits,  no  traditions,  nothing  to  hold  on  to  in  times  of 
crisis  or  distress.  There  was  no  one  in  London  who  had 
been  born  and  had  spent  all  his  life  in  one  house,  in  a 
house,  too,  in  which  his  father  had  been  born  and  had  lived 
and  had  died.    People  took  a  house  for  three  years  .  .  . 


474  CHANGING  WINDS 

and  then  moved  to  another  one.  Locality  had  no  meaning 
for  thein  .  .  .  they  hardly  knew  the  names  of  their  neigh- 
bours .  .  .  they  were  not  surrounded  by  cousins  .  .  .  the 
roads  and  streets  had  no  meaning  or  memories  for  them 
.  .  .  they  were  just  thoroughfares,  passages  along  which 
one  walked  or  drove  to  a  railway  station  or  a  shopping 
centre.  .  .  . 

And  while  Old  Widger,  if  the  thought  had  been  put  into 
his  mind,  would  stoutly  have  answered,  **Us  ain't  never 
been  beat!"  a  Londoner  would  have  answered,  "My  God, 
supposing  we  are  beaten?  ..."  Victory  might  be  long  in 
being  won.  Widger  would  admit  that.  But  "us  ain't  never 
been  beat"  he  would  maintain.  The  Londoner  would  ad- 
mit that  victory  might  never  be  won  .  .  .  and  in  making 
the  admission,  de-nationalised  himself.  Widger,  obstinate, 
immovable,  imperturbable,  kindly,  unvengeful  and  reso- 
lute, was  English  to  the  marrow  .  .  .  and  when  Henry 
thought  of  England  as  a  conquering  country,  he  thought 
of  it  as  a  nation  of  Widgers,  not  as  a  nation  of  Cockneys. 

"And  it  is  a  nation  of  Widgers,"  he  said  to  himself. 
"The  Cockneys  shout  more,  print  more,  and  they  squeal  a 
lot,  but  the  Widgers  are  in  the  majority!" 

It  was  not  until  night  fell  that  Henry's  love  of  London 
was  restored.  When  the  sky-signs  were  put  out,  and  the 
shop-lights  were  diminished,  and  the  running  flames  an- 
nouncing the  merits  of  this  one's  whisky  and  that  one's 
tea  were  quenched,  London  became  again  an  ancient  city 
that  a  man  could  love.  .  .  . 

"It's  worth  fighting  for?"  Henry  murmured  to  him- 
self as  he  stood  on  the  terrace  of  Trafalgar  Square,  before 
the  National  Gallery,  and  looked  about  him  at  the  dusk- 
softened  outlines  and  the  rich  highways  of  shadows.  One 
would  not  fight  for  the  England  that  squealed  through  the 
ha'penny  papers  .  .  .  one  would  gladly  throttle  that  Eng- 
land .  .  .  one  would  not  fight  for  the  England  of  the  Stock 
Brol'-e;-  and  the  Mill  Owner  .  .  .  but  one  would  fight  hard, 


CHANGING  WINDS  475 

fight  until  death,  for  the  England  of  Old  Widger  and  the 
England  of  this  darkened,  dignified  and  beautiful  Lon- 
don. 


3 

He  had  attended  to  his  business  with  his  publishers, 
and  was  walking  along  the  Strand  towards  Charing  Cross, 
when  he  became  aware  of  a  thrill  of  emotion  run- 
ning through  the  crowd  that  stood  on  either  side  of  the 
road. 

''What  is  it?"  he  said  to  a  bystander. 

*  *  The  wounded ! ' '  was  the  answer. 

He  pressed  forward,  and  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  pave- 
ment, and  as  he  did  so,  the  ambulances  came  out  of  the 
station.  There  was  a  moment  of  deep,  hurting  silence, 
and  then  came  cheers  and  waving  handkerchiefs  and  sobs. 
.  .  .  There  was  a  parson  standing  at  Henry's  elbow,  and 
he  cheered  as  if  he  were  intoning  .  .  .  little  sterilised 
hurrahs  .  .  .  and  there  was  a  woman  who  murmured  con- 
tinually, **0h,  God  bless  them!  God  bless  them  all!" 
while  she  cried  openly,  unrestrainedly.  Unceasingly,  the 
ambulances  seemed  to  pass  on  to  the  hospitals,  and  the  sol- 
diers, pale  from  their  wounds  and  tired  after  their  jour- 
ney by  sea  and  train,  lay  back  in  queer  disregard  of  the 
crowd  that  cheered  them.  Now  and  then,  one  moved  his 
hand  in  greeting  or  smiled  .  .  .  but  most  of  them  were  ir- 
responsive, dazed,  perhaps  hearing  still  the  sound  of  the 
smashing  artillery  and  the  cries  of  the  maimed  and  dying, 
unable  to  believe  that  they  were  back  again  in  a  place 
where  there  was  no  fighting,  where  men  and  women  walked 
and  talked  and  did  their  work  and  took  their  pleasure  in 
disregard  of  death  and  a  bloody  and  abrupt  end.  .  .  . 
There  was  a  private  motor-car  in  the  middle  of  the  pro- 
cession of  ambulances,  and  inside  it  was  a  wounded  officer 
with  his  wife  .  .  .  and  she  did  not  care  who  looked  on  nor 


476  CHANGING  WINDS 

what  was  said,  she  held  him  in  her  arms  and  kissed  him 
and  would  not  let  him  go.  .  .  . 

"Oh,  my  God,"  Henry  murmured  to  himself,  as  the 
cars  went  by,  "I  can't  bear  this!  ..." 

He  wanted  to  kill  Germans  ...  it  seemed  to  him  then 
that  nothing  else  mattered  but  to  kill  Germans  .  .  .  that 
one  must  put  aside  the  generous  beliefs,  the  kindly  inten- 
tions, one's  work,  one's  faith,  everything  .  .  .  and  kill  Ger- 
mans; unceasingly,  without  relenting  .  .  .  kill  Germans; 
that  for  every  wound  these  men  bore,  for  every  drop  of 
blood  they  had  lost,  for  every  pang  they  had  endured,  for 
every  tear  that  their  women  had  shed  .  .  .  one  must  kill 
Germans. 

He  withdrew  from  the  crowd.  Somewhere  near  at  hand, 
there  was  a  recruiting  office.  He  remembered  to  have  seen 
a  large  guiding  sign  outside  St.  ]\Iartin's  Church.  He 
would  go  there!  .  .  . 

He  had  to  wait  until  the  procession  of  motor-ambu- 
lances had  passed  by,  and  then  he  crossed  the  street  and 
went  to  find  the  recruiting  office.  "I'm  excited,"  he  said 
to  himself.  "I'm  full  of  emotion.  That's  what  I  am. 
I'm  over-wrought.    Those  soldiers!  ..." 

In  his  mind,  he  could  see  the  woman  in  the  motor-car, 
hugging  her  wounded  husband  .  .  .  and  a  soldier,  lying 
on  a  stretcher  in  an  ambulance,  with  his  head  swathed  in 
bandages,  near  a  little  window  .  .  .  feebly  trying  to  wave 
his  hand  to  the  crowd.  .  .  . 

"It's  no  good  being  sloppy,"  he  told  himself.  "One 
can't  win  a  war  by  .  .  .  spilling  over.  One's  got  to  keep 
one's  head!" 

He 'turned  the  corner  of  the  Church  and  saw  the  re- 
cruiting office,  covered  with  posters,  in  a  narrow  lane.  He 
walked  towards  it,  slackening  his  pace  as  he  did  so  .  .  . 
and  then  he  walked  past  it. 

"I  can't  go  in  now,"  he  thought.  "I  must  see  Roger 
first  .  .  .  and  there's  the  book  to  finish  .  .  .  and 
Mary!  .  .  ." 


CHANGING  WINDS  477 


He  had  seen  Roger  and  Rachel,  and  was  now  on  his  way 
back  to  Boveyhayne.  .  .  .  Roger  had  agreed  that  he  would 
not  join  without  Henry.  "I  can't  go  yet,"  he  had  said. 
' '  When  I  've  saved  a  little  more,  I  '11  go  in.  I  want  to  leave 
Rachel  and  Eleanor  as  secure  as  I  can ! ' ' 

There  was  another  boom  in  recruiting  just  then,  follow- 
ing on  another  German  outrage. 

"It'll  take  them  some  time  to  shape  the  crowd  they're 
getting  now,"  Roger  had  said,  *'so  that  we  won't  be  hin- 
dering them  if  we  hang  back  for  a  while.  I  should  have 
thought  you'd  want  to  go  into  an  Irish  regiment,  Quinny !" 

"It  doesn't  very  much  matter,  does  it,  what  the  regi- 
ment is  ? "  Henry  had  answered.  ' '  The  labels  are  more  or 
less  meaningless  now.  And  I'd  like  to  be  with  some  one  I 
know!" 

He  had  given  Mrs.  Graham's  invitation  to  Rachel,  and 
Rachel  had  sent  her  thanks  to  Mrs.  Graham.  She  would 
be  glad  to  go  to  Boveyhayne  when  everything  was  settled. 

Things  were  clearer  now.  In  a  little  while,  Mary  and  he 
would  be  married.  Then  he  could  go  with  Roger.  He 
would  have  to  see  his  lawyers  in  Dublin  .  .  .  there  would 
be  a  marriage  settlement  to  make  and  business  connected 
with  the  estate  to  settle  .  .  .  and  that  done,  and  his  book 
ready  for  the  printers,  he  would  be  free. 

"I  wish  the  next  two  months  were  over,"  he  said  to  him- 
self. 

He  had  to  change  at  Salisbury,  and  while  he  was  wait- 
ing for  the  slow  train  to  Exeter,  he  met  Mullally.  He  had 
looked  at  him,  vaguely  wondering  who  he  was  and  why  his 
face  should  seem  familiar,  until  recollection  had  come  to 
him,  and  then,  with  a  return  of  the  old  aversion,  he  had 
turned  away,  hoping  that  Mullally  had  .not  seen  or  recog- 
nised him.  But  Mullally  had  recognised  him,  and,  unable 
as  ever  to  understand  that  his  acquaintance  was  not 
wanted,  he  came  to  Henry  and  held  out  his  hand. 


47d  CHANGING  WINDS 

'  *  I  thought  it  was  you, ' '  he  said.  * '  I  wasn  't  sure  at  first, 
but  when  you  turned  away  .  .  .  there  was  something  about 
your  back  that  was  familiar  ...  I  knew  it  was  you.  How 
are  you?  I  haven't  seen  you  since  you  left  Rumpell's, 
though  I've  heard  of  you,  of  course,  and  read  of  you,  too! 
You've  become  quite  well-known,  haven't  you?" 

Henry  smiled  feebly,  an  unfriendly,  unresponsive,  mirth- 
less smile,  as  was  his  wont  when  he  was  in  the  presence 
of  people  whom  he  disliked. 

"I've  often  wondered  about  you,"  Mullally  went  on,  un- 
embarrassed by  Henry's  obvious  wish  to  get  away  from 
him. 

"Oh,  yes,"  Henry  replied,  saying  to  himself,  "I  wish 
to  God  my  train  would  come  in!" 

"Yes,  I've  often  wondered  about  you,"  Mullally  went  on. 
"And  about  Farlow  and  Graham  and  Carey.  You  were 
great  friends,  you  four,  weren't  you?  I'd  have  called  you 
'The  Heavenly  Twins'  only  there  were  four  of  you,  and 
'quadruplets'  is  a  difficult  word  for  a  nickname,  don't  you 
think?  I  mean  to  say  'The  Heavenly  Quadruplets' 
doesn't  sound  nearly  so  neat  as  'The  Heavenly  Twins.' 
It's  funnier,  of  course!  What's  become  of  them  all?  I 
saw  somewhere  that  Farlow 'd  written  a  play,  but  I  didn't 
see  it.  I've  read  one  or  two  of  your  books,  by  the  way. 
Quite  good,  I  thought!  What  did  you  say'd  become  of 
them?" 

"Carey's  in  London  ...  at  the  Bar,"  Henry  answered. 
"I've  just  been  staying  with  him.     He's  married!  .  .  ." 

' '  Dear  me !    And  has  he  any  .  .  .  little  ones  ? ' ' 

Oh,  that  was  like  Mullally!  He  would  be  sure  to  say 
"little  ones"  when  he  meant  "children." 

"He  has  a  daughter!" 

' '  Oh,  indeed !  He  must  be  very  gratified.  And  Farlow 
and  Graham,  how-  are  they,  and  what  are  they  doing?" 

" Farlow 's  in  Gallipoli  and  Graham's  in  France!  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  this  dreadful  war,"  Mullally  exclaimed,  wrinkling 


CHANGING  WINDS  479 

his  features.  **I'm  greatly  opposed  to  it.  I've  been  ad- 
dressing meetings  on  the  subject!" 

"Have  you?"  Henry  asked  with  more  interest  than  he 
had  previously  shov/n. 

"Yes,  I'm  totally  opposed  to  it.  All  this  secret  diplo- 
macy and  race  for  armaments  .  .  .  that's  at  the  bottom  of 
it  all.  My  dear  Quinn,  some  members  of  the  Cabinet  have 
shares  in  armament  works.  It's  easy  enough  to  see  why 
we're  at  war!  ..." 

Henry  could  not  prevent  himself  from  laughing. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  think  they  got  up  the  war  on 
purpose  so's  to  get  bigger  dividends  on  their  armament 
shares  ? ' ' 

JMullally  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "I  don't  wish  to  im- 
pute motives,"  he  said.  "No,  I  should  not  care  to  do  that. 
I  believe  in  the  good  intentions  of  my  fellow  man,  but  all 
the  same,  it's  very  peculiar.     It  looks  bad!  ..." 

"You  always  were  a  bloody  fool,  JMullally,  and  you're  a 
bloodier  one  now.  Good  afternoon!"  said  Henry,  turn- 
ing to  look  at  the  train  which  was  now  entering  the  station. 

He  hurried  to  secure  a  carriage,  and  while  he  was  set- 
tling his  bag  on  the  rack,  he  heard  the  voice  of  Mullally 
bleating  in  his  ear. 

"I'm  going  to  Exeter,  too,"  he  said.  "I'll  just  get  in 
with  you.  I  have  a  third  class  ticket,  but  if  they  ask  for 
the  excess,  I  can  pay  it ! " 

"Oh,  damn!"  said  Henry  to  himself. 

5 

"I  can  understand  the  difficulty  you  have  in  believing 
that  people  could  behave  so  ...  so  basely,"  Mullally  said, 
as  the  train  carried  them  out  of  Salisbury. 

"I  don't  believe  it  at  all,"  Henry  answered,  "and  I  think 

that  any  one  who  does  believe  it  is  a  malicious-minded  ass!" 

'But  they  hold  the  shares  .  .  .  you  can  see  the  list  of 


480  CHANGING  WINDS 

shareholders  at  Somerset  House  for  yourself  .  .  .  and 
they'll  take  the  profits.  I'm  quite  willing  to  believe  in  the 
goodness  of  the  average  man  ...  in  fact,  I've  denounced 
the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin  very  forcibly  before  now  .  .  . 
but  I  must  say  that  there's  something  very  suspicious 
about  this  business.  Very  suspicious.  And  you  know 
some  of  the  soldiers  are  really  rather!  ..." 

"Rather  what?"  said  Henry. 

"Well,  I  don't  like  saying  anything  about  anybody,  but 
some  of  them  are  not  all  that  they  should  be.  They  should 
set  an  example,  and  they  don't.  I've  heard  some  very 
startling  things  about  the  behaviour  of  the  soldiers.  Very 
startling  things.  I  don't  want  to  say  anything  that  may 
sound  unpleasant,  but  I  suggest  that  you  should  read  the 
Report  of  the  Registrar-General  when  it  comes  out.  It 
will  cause  some  consternation,  I  can  promise  you.  Young 
women,  Quinn,  simply  can't  be  kept  away  from  the  sol- 
diers, and  I  've  been  told  .  .  .  well !  .  .  . " 

Again  he  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  turned  his  palms 
upwards  and  raised  his  eyebrows.  A  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment had  written  to  the  Morning  Post  about  it  ...  a  Con- 
servative member  of  Parliament,  not  a  Liberal  or  a  Social- 
ist, mark  you,  but  a  Conservative.  .  .  . 

"Two  thousand  cases  expected  in  one  town,"  MuUally 
whispered.    "Knows  it  for  a  fact.     Seen  the  girls!  .  .  ." 

MuUally  proposed  a  calculation.  They  were  to  work  out 
the  number  of  unmarried  girls  who  would  shortly  become 
mothers,  using  the  Conservative  M.P.'s  letter  as  a  basis  of 
calculation. 

"Thousands  and  thousands,"  he  prophesied.  "Hun- 
dreds of  thousands.  All  illegitimate.  I  believe,  of  course, 
that  we  make  too  much  fuss  about  the  marriage  laws,  Quinn, 
but  still  .  .  .  there  are  limits,  don't  you  think?  I  mean, 
we  must  make  changes  slowly,  not  in  this  .  .  .  this  drastic 
fashion.  But  what  are  you  to  expect?  When  the  very 
Cabinet  Ministers  are  proved  to  have  shares  in  munition 


CHANGING  WINDS  481 

works,  is  it  any  wonder  that  the  common  soldier  runs 
riot?  .  .  ." 

"I  get  out  at  the  next  station,"  said  Henry. 

"Do  you?"  said  Mullally.  "But  I  thought  you  didn't 
change  until  you  got  to  Whitcombe  Junction  ? ' ' 

"I  don't,"  said  Henry,  "but  I  get  out  at  the  next  sta- 
tion!" 

"I  see,"  said  Mullally. 

"About  time,"  Henry  thought. 

6 

After  dinner,  he  asked  Mary  to  walk  to  the  village  with 
him. 

"Isn't  it  late?"  Mrs.  Graham  objected. 

"Oh,  no,"  he  answered.  "It's  a  beautiful  moonlight 
night,  and  I  feel  I  want  to  stretch  my  legs.  I've  been 
cooped  up  in  the  train  best  part  of  the  day.  Come  along, 
Mary!" 

"I'll  just  get  my  coat,"  she  said. 

When  they  were  ready,  he  put  his  arm  in  hers,  and  they 
walked  down  the  long  lane,  past  the  copse  and  through  the 
pine  trees,  to  the  village. 

"It's  very  quiet  to-night,"  Mary  said. 

"Extraordinarily  still,"  he  answered. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  village  street  and  there  were 
no  lights  shining  from  any  of  the  windows,  except  from  the 
bedroom  of  a  cottage  near  the  sea. 

"They've  all  gone  to  bed  very  early,  haven't  they?"  he 
said,  glancing  about  the  deserted  street. 

"But  it  isn't  early,  Quinny,"  she  replied.  "It's  quite 
late.  It  must  be  nearly  ten  o  'clock.  We  had  dinner  much 
later  to-night  because  your  train  was  so  long  in  getting  in ! " 

"Well,  they're  missing  a  gorgeous  night,  all  of  them," 
he  exclaimed,  holding  her  tightly. 

They  walked  to  the  fisherman's  shelter  and  stood  against 


482  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  iron  rail  on  top  of  the  low  cliff.  The  moon  had  made  a 
broad  path  of  golden  light  across  the  bay,  from  the  shin- 
gle to  the  pinnacle  on  the  nearer  of  the  two  headlands,  and 
they  could  see  the  golden  water  flowing  through  the  hole 
in  the  cliff. 

"I'd  love  to  bathe  now,"  Mary  said.  "I'd  love  to  swim 
all  along  that  splash  of  moonlight  to  the  caves  and  back 
again.  ..." 

A  belated  sea-gull  cried  wearily  overhead  and  then  flew 
off  to  its  nest  in  the  cliffs. 

"The  water's  awfully  black  looking  outside  the  moon- 
light," Henry  exclaimed. 

"Ummm!"  she  answered. 

They  shivered  a  little  in  the  cold  air,  and  instinctively 
they  drew  closer  to  each  other.  Beneath  them,  lying  high 
on  the  shingle,  were  the  trawlers,  lying  ready  for  the  morn- 
ing when  the  fishermen  would  push  them  down  into  the  sea. 

"Tom  Yeo  and  Jim  Rattenbury  are  going  to  have  a 
motor  put  into  their  trawler,"  Mary  said.  "It'll  make  a 
lot  of  difference  to  them.  They'll  be  able  to  go  out  even 
when  there  isn't  any  wind." 

Henry  did  not  answer.  He  had  a  strange  sense  of  fear 
that  was  inexplicable  to  him.  He  seemed  to  be  outside 
himself,  outside  his  own  fear,  looking  on  at  it  and  won- 
dering what  had  caused  it.  He  felt  as  if  something  were 
pulling  at  him,  trying  to  force  him  to  look  round  .  .  .  and 
he  was  afraid  to  look  round.  ...  He  shuddered  violently. 

"Are  you  cold,  Quinny?"  Mary  said  anxiously,  turning 
to  him. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  quickly,  wishing  to  account  for  his 
sudden  shivering  in  a  way  that  would  not  alarm  her. 
"We'd  better  go  back!  ..." 

What  was  the  matter?  Why  was  he  so  suddenly  afraid 
and  so  strangely  afraid?  If  it  had  been  dark,  very  dark, 
and  he  had  been  alone  .  .  .  but  it  was  bright  moonlight 
.  .  .  ao  bright  that  one  could  almost  see  to  read  .  .  .  and 
Mary  was  with  him  .  .  .  and  yet  he  was  afraid  to  look 


CHANGING  WINDS  483 

round  at  the  "White  Cliff.  Something  inside  him,  apart 
from  him,  seemed  to  feel  that  if  he  looked  up  the  long  steep 
path  over  the  "White  Cliff  .  .  .  he  would  see  something. 

"Come  on,  Mary!"  he  said,  turning  to  go,  and  turning 
in  such  a  way  that  he  could  not  see  the  Cliff. 

They  walked  rapidly  up  the  street.  .  .  .  "That'll  warm 
me,"  he  explained  to  Mary  .  .  .  and  as  he  walked,  he  was 
afraid  to  look  back. 

* '  What  the  devil 's  the  matter  with  me  ? "  he  kept  saying 
to  himself  until  they  reached  the  end  of  the  lane  leading 
to  the  Manor. 

"You're  walking  too  quickly,  Quinny !"  Mary  said,  hold- 
ing back. 

"I'm  sorry,  dear,"  he  exclaimed,  slackening  his  pace 
reluctantly. 

He  had  never  had  this  sensation  before  ...  as  if  a  fear 
had  been  stuck  on  to  him,  a  fear  that  was  not  part  of  his 
nature,  a  thing  outside  him  trying  to  get  inside  him.  .  .  . 
He  forgot  that  Mary  had  complained  of  the  rapidity  with 
which  he  was  walking,  and  he  set  off  again.  The  pine 
trees  had  a  black,  ominous  look,  and  the  sound  of  the  wind 
blowing  through  their  needles  was  like  continuous  moan- 
ing. 

"Are  you  trying  to  win  a  race,  Quinny?"  Mary  said. 

He  laughed  nervously.  "No.  I'm  .  .  .  I'm  sorry!  .  .  ." 

As  they  passed  the  copse,  he  shut  his  eyes,  and  so  he 
stumbled  over  the  rough  ground  and  almost  fell. 

"What  is  it,  Quinny?"  Mary  demanded,  catching  hold 
of  him. 

"It's  nothing,"  he  said.    "I'm  tired,  that's  all.  .  .  ." 


He  shut  the  door  behind  him  quickly,  and  fastened  the 
bolts.  Mary  had  gone  into  the  drawing-room,  and  when 
he  had  secured  the  door,  he  followed  her. 


484  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Mother's  gone  to  bed,"  she  said,  and  then,  going  to 
him  and  putting  her  hands  on  his  shoulder,  she  added, 
"What  is  it,  Quinny?  Something's  upset  you.  I  know 
it  has!" 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  few  moments  without  speaking. 

* '  Tell  me,  please ! ' '  she  insisted. 

He  put  his  arm  aboilt  her  and  led  her  to  the  armchair 
by  the  fire,  and  when  she  was  seated,  he  sat  down  on  the 
floor  beside  her. 

"I  didn't  want  to  tell  you  until  we  got  home,"  he  said. 
"I  didn't  want  to  frighten  you.  ..." 

"What  was  it?    Was  there  anything  there?  ..." 

"I  don't  know  what  it  was,  Mary,  but  I  suddenly  felt 
frightened  ...  a  queer  kind  of  fright.  I  was  afraid  to 
look  round  for  fear  I  should  see  something  ...  I  don't 
know  what  ...  on  the  cliff.  I  felt  that  something  wanted 
me  to  look  round,  and  I  wouldn't.  I  didn't  dare  to  look 
round.  All  the  way  up  the  street,  I  felt  that  something 
wanted  me  to  look  round.  ...  I'm  not  afraid  now!" 

"How  queer,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice. 

"I've  never  felt  anything  like  it  before  .  .  .  half  afraid 
and  half  not  afraid!  ..." 

He  began  to  talk  about  Mullally.  "He's  a  toad,  that 
fellow, ' '  he  said,  "  an  ...  an  enlarged  toad ! ' ' 

"I'm  going  to  bed,'*  she  interrupted.  "Good-night, 
Quinny ! ' ' 

She  bent  her  face  to  his. 

"Good-night,  my  dear!"  he  said,  kissing  her  fondly. 


8 

Three  days  later,  when  he  had  almost  forgotten  his  fright 
on  the  cliffs,  he  went  down  to  the  village  to  get  the  morning 
papers. 

' '  What 's  the  news, ' '  he  said  to  one  of  the  villagers  whom 
he  met  on  the  way. 


CHANGING  WINDS  485 

**  'Bout  the  same,  sir.  Don't  seem  to  be  much  'appenin' 
at  present,"  the  man  replied. 

He  went  on  to  the  news  agency  and  got  the  papers,  and 
then,  hastily  glancing  at  the  headlines  for  the  more  obvious 
news,  he  tucked  the  papers  under  his  arm  and  went  slowly 
back  to  the  Manor  by  another  road  than  the  one  by  which 
he  had  come  into  the  village.  There  was  a  field  with  a 
hollow  where  one  could  lie  in  shelter  and  see  the  whole  of 
the  bay  and  the  eastern  cliffs  in  one  direction,  and  the  Axe 
Valley  in  another,  and  here  he  sat  for  a  while,  smoking  and 
reading  and  now  and  then  trying  to  follow  the  tortuous 
windings  of  the  Axe  as  it  came  down  the  marsh  to  the  sea. 

"If  Ninian  were  here,"  he  said  to  himself,  "he'd  start 
making  plans  to  straighten  it  out!  ..." 

He  glanced  through  the  war  bulletins,  with  their  terri- 
ble iteration  of  trenches  taken  and  trenches  lost.  People 
read  the  war  news  carelessly  now,  almost  wearily,  so  ac- 
customed had  they  become  to  the  daily  report  of  positions 
evacuated  and  positions  retrieved,  forgetting  almost  that  at 
the  taking  or  the  losing  of  a  trench,  men  lost  their  lives. 

"There  isn't  much  in  the  paper  this  morning,"  he  said, 
and  then  he  turned  to  a  page  of  lesser  news,  and  almost  as 
he  did  so,  his  eye  caught  sight  of  Gilbert's  name.  His  grip 
on  the  paper  was  so  tight  that  he  tore  it.  He  stared  at  the 
paragraph  with  startling  eyes,  reading  and  re-reading  it, 
as  if  he  were  unable  to  comprehend  the  meaning  of  the 
thing  he  read.  .  .  .  Then,  as  understanding  came  to  him,  he 
gaped  about  with  vacant  eyes. 

' '  Oh,  my  God ! "  he  cried,  ' '  Gilbert 's  been  killed ! ' ' 


He  got  up,  half  choking,  and  scrambled  out  of  the  field. 
A  labourer  greeted  him,  but  he  made  no  answer.  He  ran 
up  the  road,  and  as  he  ran,  he  cried  to  himself,  "Gilbert's 
dead  ...  it  isn't  true  ...  it  isn't  true!  .  .  ." 

He  thrust  open  the  gate  and  ran  swiftly  up  to  the  door. 


486  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Mary!"  he  shouted.    "Mary!    Mary!!...*' 

She  came  running  to  him,  followed  by  her  mother. 

"What  is  it?"  she  cried,  and  her  heart  was  full  of  fear. 

Mrs.  Graham  clutched  at  him.  "It  isn't  ..  .  it 
isn't  .  .  ." 

He  sank  down  into  a  chair  and  buried  his  head 
in  his  hands.  "Gilbert's  dead,"  he  said.  "He's  been 
killed!  .  .  ." 

Mary  knelt  beside  him,  and  drew  his  head  on  to  her 
shoulder.  She  did  not  speak.  There  was  nothing  that 
could  be  said.  She  knew  that  Gilbert  and  Henry  had  cared 
for  each  other  as  men  seldom  care  .  .  .  and  no  one,  not 
even  she,  could  bring  comfort  to  the  one  who  was  left.  So 
she  just  held  him.  ... 

10 

Mrs.  Graham  had  left  them  alone.  Her  fear  had  been  for 
Ninian,  and  when  she  heard  Gilbert's  name,  her  relief  was 
such  that  she  had  hurried  from  the  room  lest  Henry, 
stricken  by  the  death  of  his  friend,  should  see  her  face. 

"I  know  now,"  he  said  when  he  was  calmer,  "what  it 
was  on  the  White  Cliff.  He  wanted  to  tell  me,  Mary.  He 
wanted  to  tell  me  .  .  .  and  I  wouldn't  look  round.  Oh,  my 
God,  I  wouldn't  look  round!" 


THE  NINTH  CHAPTER 


It  was  unbelievable  that  Gilbert  was  dead.  In  his  mind, 
Henry  could  see  him,  careless,  extravagant,  always  good- 
tempered  and  sometimes  strangely  wise  and  understanding 
.  .  .  and  he  could  not  believe  that  he  would  never  see  him 
again,  that  all  that  youth  and  generosity  and  promise 
should  be  turned  so  untimely  to  corniption.  Gilbert's 
friends  would  not  even  know  where  his  grave  was  .  .  . 
they  would  not  have  the  poor  consolation  of  finding  a  place 
that  was  his,  marked  out  from  all  the  other  places.  .  .  . 
He  had  been  seen,  running  forward  ,  .  .  and  then  he  was 
seen  no  more.  .  .  . 

"Perhaps,"  Henry  said  to  comfort  himself,  "he's  been 
taken  prisoner.  We  shall  hear  later  on  that  he's  been  taken 
prisoner!  ..." 

He  snatched  at  any  hope.  Men  had  been  posted  among 
the  dead  .  .  .  and  then,  after  a  time  of  mourning,  had 
come  the  news  that  they  still  lived.  Perhaps  Gilbert  was 
lying  somewhere  .  .  .  wounded  .  .  .  and  after  a  while, 
news  of  him  would  come.  Other  men  might  die,  but  it  was 
incredible  that  Gilbert  should  be  killed.  .  .  . 

He  became  obsessed  with  the  belief  that  Gilbert  still 
lived.  He  went  about  expecting  to  see  him  suddenly  turn- 
ing a  comer  and  shouting,  "Hilloa,  Quinny !"  At  any  mo- 
ment, a  door  might  open,  and  Gilbert  would  walk  in  and 
say,  "Well,  coves!"  There  was  a  printed  copy  of  "The 
Magic  Casement"  in  the  house,  and  Henry  would  pick  it  up, 
and  turn  over  the  pages.  .  .  .  "But  he  can't  be  dead,''  he 
would  say  to  himself,  as  he  fingered  the  book.  "It's  ab- 
surd! ..."  Even  when  hope  died,  there  came  times  when 

487 


488  CHANGING  WINDS 

the  belief  in  Gilbert's  survival  thrust  itself  into  his  mind. 
When  the  Lusitania  was  torpedoed,  he  said  to  himself, 
"Why,  we  saw  her  just  after  the  war  began,  Gilbert  and  I, 
and  w6  cheered!  ..." 

The  brutality  of  the  war  smote  him  hard.  In  less  than  a 
year  from  the  day  when  they  had  stood  on  the  rocks  at 
Tre'Arrdur  Bay,  lustily  cheering  as  the  great  Atlantic 
liner  sailed  up  the  sea  to  the  Mersey,  Gilbert  was  dead  and 
the  proud  ship  was  a  wreck,  sneakily  destroyed.  .  .  . 

Gilbert  had  left  the  beginning  of  a  play  behind  him.  He 
had  regretted  that  he  could  not  finish  it  before  going  out  to 
the  peninsula  .  .  .  had  believed  that  in  it  he  would  create 
something  finer  and  deeper  than  he  had  yet  done  .  .  .  and 
now  it  would  never  reach  completion.  The  mind  that 
imagined  it  was  no  more  than  the  rubbish  of  the  fields  when 
the  harvest  is  gathered.  .  .  . 

His  own  work  became  tasteless  to  him.  He  turned  with 
disrelish  from  his  manuscript.  **  What's  the  good  of  it,"  he 
said  to  himself,  whenever  he  looked  at  it.  He  tried  to  put 
himself  into  communication  with  Gilbert's  spirit,  remem- 
bering that  night  below  the  White  Cliff,  when,  he  now  be- 
lieved, Gilbert  had  tried  to  tell  him  of  his  death.  A  month 
before,  he  would  have  ridiculed  any  one  who  suggested  to 
him  that  he  should  attempt  to  speak  to  the  dead.  ' '  Spook- 
ery!"  he  would  have  said.  But  now,  in  his  eagerness  to 
atone,  as  he  said,  for  his  failure  to  respond  when  Gilbert 
had  tried  to  speak  to  him,  he  put  faith  in  things  that,  be- 
fore, would  have  seemed  contemptible  to  him.  But  with 
all  his  will  to  believe,  he  could  not  call  Gilbert  to  him. 
There  was  a  blankness,  a  condemning  silence.  .  .  . 

"I  failed  my  friend,"  he  groaned  to  himself  once, 
"When  he  felt  for  me  most,  I  ...  I  failed  him!" 


He  had  gone  up  to  the  Common  with  Mary,  and  had  lain 
there,  talking  of  Gilbert  ...  of  what  Gilbert  had  been 


CHANGING  WINDS  489 

doing  this"  time  a  year  ago  ...  of  something  that  Gilbert 
had  said  once  ...  of  an  escapade  at  Rumpell's  .  .  .  and 
then  Mary  and  he  had  gone  home  across  the  fields.  As 
they  walked  up  the  lane  to  the  house,  they  saw  a  telegraph 
messenger  ahead  of  them.  They  quickened  their  pace. 
There  was  an  anxious,  strained  look  on  Mary's  face,  and 
as  the  messenger,  hearing  them  behind  him,  turned  and 
stopped,  she  made  a  clutching  movement  with  her  hands. 
"Oh,  Quinny!"  she  said,  turning  to  him  with  frightened 
eyes.  The  boy  waited  until  Henry  went  up  to  him,  re- 
garding them  both  with  curiosity. 

"Is  it  for  us?"  Henry  asked,  knowing  that  it  was,  and 
the  boy  nodded  his  head.    "I'll  take  it,"  he  went  on. 
"It'll  save  you  the  trouble  of  going  up  to  the  house !" 

"Thank  you,  sir!"  the  messenger  said,  and  then  he 
handed  the  telegram  to  Henry.  "Is  there  any  answer, 
sir?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know,"  Henry  replied.  "We'll  .  .  .  we'll 
bring  it  down  to  the  post-ofifice,  if  there  is!" 

He  knew  that  there  would  not  be  any  answer.  .  .  . 

The  boy  went  off,  looking  back  at  them  now  and  then, 
over  his  shoulder. 

"Shall  I  open  it,  Mary?"  Henry  said. 

"Do  you  think?  ..."  She  did  not  complete  her  sen- 
tence for  she  was  afraid  to  utter  the  thought  that  was  in  her 
mind. 

"If  it  should  be  bad  news,"  Henry  said,  "we'd  .  .  .we'd 
better  prepare  her  for  it ! " 

They  stood  there,  holding  the  telegram  still  unopened,  as 
if  they  could  not  make  a  decision.  .  .  . 

"Open  it,  Quinny!"  Mary  said  at  last,  and  he  opened 
the  buff  envelope  and  took  out  the  form. 

The  Secretary  for  War  regretted!  .  .  . 

He  looked  up  from  the  telegram,  and  saw  that  Mary  was 
standing  in  a  strained  attitude,  waiting  for  him  to  speak. 

"Is  it  ...  is  it  that?"  she  said,  almost  in  a  whisper. 

He  bowed  his  head.    "Yes,"  he  said. 


490  CHANGING  WINDS 

She  did  not  speak.  She  stood  quite  still,  looki'ag  at  him 
as  if  she  were  trying  to  find  something,  but  did  not  know 
where  to  look  for  it.  He  moved  nearer  to  her,  and  took 
hold  of  her  hand  and  drew  her  close  to  him,  and  she  lay 
quietly  in  his  arms.  .  .  .  There  was  a  bird  singing  very 
clearly  over  their  heads,  and  suddenly,  while  they  stood 
there,  silently  consoling  each  other,  two  wood  pigeons  flew 
out  of  the  highest  tree,  making  a  great  beating  of  wings  as 
they  flew  off  across  the  fields.  There  was  a  robin  in  the 
hedge,  turning  its  head  this  way  and  that,  and  regarding 
them  with  curiosity.  .  .  . 

She  stirred,  and  then  withdrew  herself  from  his  arms. 

**We  must  go  home,"  she  said,  "and  tell  mother!" 


3 

Mrs.  Graham  was  in  the  garden,  and  she  came  to  the  gate 
as  she  saw  them  approaching,  waving  her  hand  and  smiling 
at  them. 

"Will  you  tell  her,  Quinny,"  Mary  said,  and  she  slack- 
ened her  pace  slightly  and  dropped  behind  him. 

He  turned  to  look  for  her.  "Come  with  me,"  he  said.' 
"I  can't  tell  her  .  .  .  alone!" 

There  was  a  chilly  fear  over  both  of  them.  They  felt 
that  this  blow  would  strike  her  down,  that  she  would  not 
survive  it.  Ninian  was  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  her 
life.  If  Ninian  were  gone,  everything  was  gone.  This 
house,  the  farm,  the  fields  were  without  purpose  if  Ninian 
were  not  there  to  own  them.  .  .  .  They  went  slowly  for- 
ward, and  as  they  approached  they  saw  her  smile  vanish, 
and  a  puzzled  look  come  in  its  place.  She  had  waved  her 
hand  and  smiled  at  them,  but  they  had  not  waved  back  to 
her,  they  had  not  answered  her  smile  .  .  .  and  then  she  saw 
the  telegram  in  Henry's  hand.  She  made  a  quick  move- 
ment, opening  the  gate  and  coming  rapidly  to  them. 

"What  is  it?"  she  said,  hoarsely. 


CHANGING  WINDS  491 

He  could  not  think  of  anything  to  say.  .  .  . 

"It's  from  the  War  Office,  mother,"  ]\Iary  said. 

He  stood  ready  to  put  his  arms  about  her  and  support 
her.  ... 

"Give  it  to  me,"  she  said,  holding  out  her  hand  for  the 
telegram,  and  he  passed  it  to  her. 

They  stood  silently  before  her  while  she  read  it.  Then 
Mary  went  close  to  her.    "Mother!  ..."  she  said. 

Mrs.  Graham  did  not  make  any  answer  to  Mary.  She 
still  held  the  telegram  in  her  hands,  and  gazed  at  it,  read- 
ing it  over  and  over.  .  .  . 

"^Mother,  dear!"  ]\Iary  reached  up,  and  put  her  arms 
about  her  mother's  neck. 

"Yes,  Mary,"  she  answered  very  calmly. 

But  i\Iary  could  not  say  any  more.  She  buried  her  head 
on  her  mother's  shoulder,  and  the  tears  that  she  had  been 
holding  back,  would  not  be  held  back  any  longer,  and  sobs 
burst  from  her  that  seemed  as  if  they  would  choke  her. 

"My  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Graham,  raising  Mary's  face  to 
hers,  "we  must  ...  we  must  be  brave!" 

She  turned  to  Henry.  "Take  her  in,"  she  said,  "and 
.  .  .  and  comfort  her!" 

He  went  to  them,  and  put  his  arm  about  IMary,  and  led 
her  to  the  house.  "Won't  you  come  in,  too?"  he  said, 
turning  to  Mrs.  Graham. 

"No,  Henry,"  she  answered.  "Not  yet.  I  want  to  be 
out  here.     I  ...  I  want  to  be  alone!" 

She  moved  away,  going  slowly  down  the  avenue  of  trees 
until  she  reached  the  orchard,  and  then  she  went  into  it, 
and  was  hidden  by  the  apple  trees.  .  .  . 

He  led  Mary  into  the  house.  "We  can't  do  anything, 
Mary,"  he  said.  "We're  .  .  .  we're  all  caught  in  this 
thing  .  .  .  and  we  can't  do  anything.  ..." 

She  went  to  her  room,  and  when  he  had  seen  the  door 
close  behind  her,  he  turned  to  go  back  to  the  drawing-room. 
He  would  have  to  write  to  Roger.  "First  it  was  Gilbert 
.  .  .  then  it  was  Ninian  .  .  .  presently,  it  will  be !  .  .  . " 


492  CHANGING  WINDS 

He  shuddered,  and  tried  to  shut  the  thought  out  of  his 
mind. 

There  was  a  servant  in  the  hall.  "Tell  the  others,"  he 
said  in  a  cold,  toneless  voice,  "that  Mr.  Ninian  .  .  .  has 
been  killed  in  France!" 

"Oh,  sir!  .  .  ."  the  girl  cried,  clasping  her  hands  to- 
gether. 

He  did  not  wait  to  hear,  and  she  hurried  down  the 
passage  to  the  kitchens. 

"Two  of  us  gone  now,"  he  said  to  himself. 

He  searched  for  writing  materials,  wandering  round  and 
round  the  room  until  he  forgot  what  it  was  he  wanted. 
"I'm  looking  for  something,"  he  said  aloud,  "I'm  looking 
for  something,  but  I  don 't  know  what  it  is !  .  .  . " 

Then  he  remembered. 

* '  I  mustn  't  let  myself  go, ' '  he  said  to  himself.  * '  I  must 
keep  a  hold  of  myself.  I've  got  to  look  after  them  .  .  . 
they  '11  want  some  one  to  ...  to  lean  on ! " 

He  began  the  letter  to  Roger.  "Dear  Roger,"  he  wrote, 
and  then  he  dropped  his  pen.  He  sat  with  his  elbows  rest- 
ing on  the  table,  staring  in  front  of  him,  but  seeing  noth- 
ing. ' '  First  there  was  Gilbert, ' '  he  was  saying  to  himself, 
"then  there  was  Ninian  .  .  .  and  presently  there  will  be 
.  .  .  me!" 

One  could  not  believe  it.  One  could  not  believe  it.  Why 
it  was  only  a  little  while  ago  that  Ninian  was  here,  in  this 
very  room,  telling  them  how  clever  the  Engineers  were. 
They  were  to  win  the  war,  these  Engineers,  unless  stupid 
people,  like  the  "dug-out,"  prevented  them  from  doing  so. 
There,  in  that  corner  there,  over  by  the  fire,  that  was  where 
he  had  sat,  and  told  them  of  the  Engineers.  He  had  lain 
back  in  his  chair,  carelessly  throwing  his  leg  over  the  arm 
of  it.  .  .  .  And  when  Mrs.  Graham  had  risen  and  left  the 
room,  unable  to  stay  any  longer,  and  had  called  to  him  to 
come  to  her  room  and  say  "Good-night!"  he  had  looked 
anxiously  after  her,  and  then,  after  a  little  while  of  fidget- 


CHANGING  WINDS  493 

ting  and  poor  effort  to  talk  lightly,  had  gone  to  her.  .  .  . 

How  could  one  believe  it!  How  could  any  one  believe 
that  this  hideous  nightmare  was  true !  .  .  .  that  this  horri- 
ble thing  which  devoured  young  men  was  not  a  creature  of 
a  fevered  mind.  .  .  .  Presently  the  blood  would  cool  and 
the  eyes  would  see  clearly  .  .  .  and  Ninian's  great  shout- 
ing voice  would  roar  through  the  house,  and  Gilbert  would 
stroll  in,  and  say  "Hilloa,  coves!  ..." 

There  was  a  sound  of  steps  in  the  passage,  and  he  sat  up 
and  listened.  Then  the  door  opened  and  ]\Irs.  Graham  came 
in.  There  was  a  bright  look  in  her  tearless  eyes.  Her  lips 
were  firmly  closed,  and  he  saw  that  her  hands  were  clenched. 
He  stood  up  as  she  entered,  and  looked  at  her  as  she  came 
towards  him.  She  came  close  to  him  and  laid  her  hand 
on  his. 

"Poor  Mary,*'  she  said,  softly,  "we  .  .  .  we  must  com- 
fort poor  Mary ! ' ' 

She  looked  about  the  room.  "Where  is  she?"  she  asked, 
turning  to  him  again. 

"Upstairs,"  he  answered. 

She  went  towards  the  door.  "I  must  go  and  comfort 
her,"  she  said.  "She  was  .  .  .  very  fond  of  ...  of 
Ninian!" 

He  followed  her  to  the  door,  afraid  that  she  might  break 
down,  but  she  did  not  break  down.  She  gathered  her 
skirts  about  her,  and  went  up  the  stairs  to  Mary's  room, 
and  her  steps  were  firm  and  proud.  He  could  hear  the 
rustle  of  her  skirt  on  the  landing  as  she  passed  along  it  out 
of  his  sight,  and  then  he  heard  her  knocking  on  Mary's 
door. 

*  *  Can  I  come  in,  IMary  ? ' '  she  asked  in  a  clear  voice. 

He  could  hear  the  door  opening  .  .  .  and  then  he  heard 
it  being  closed  again. 

He  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  listening,  but  there  was 
no  need  of  him.  He  turned  away,  and  as  he  did  so,  Wid- 
ger  came  into  the  hall.    The  old  man  stood  for  a  moment  or 


494.  CHANGING  WINDS 

two  without  speaking.  Then  he  made  a  suppliant  move- 
ment with  his  trembling  hands. 

**It  b 'ain't  true?  .  .  ."he  mumbled  thickly. 

"Yes,  Widger,"  Henry  answered,  "it  is." 

The  old  man  turned  away.  "I  knowed  'un  ever  since  'e 
were  a  baby,"  he  said,  and  his  lips  were  quivering. 
'  *  Praper  li  '1  chap  'e  were,  too ! 

"It  b 'ain't  right,"  he  went  on,  looking  helplessly  about 
him.  Then  his  voice  took  a  firmer,  more  definite  note, 
"Where's  missus  to?"  he  asked. 

"She's  upstairs,  Widger,"  Henry  answered.  "I  don't 
think  I'd  say  anything  to  her  at  present,  if  I  were  you!" 

"Very  well,  sir!" 

lie  moved  away.  The  vitality  seemed  to  have  gone  out 
of  him,  and  suddenly  he  had  become  old  .  .  .  senile  .  .  . 
shuffling. 

"They'm  wisht  times,  sir!"  he  said,  as  he  left  the  hall. 


Henry  wrote  to  Roger,  telling  him  of  Ninian's  death, 
and  when  he  had  finished  the  letter,  he  went  out  to  post  it. 
He  could  not  sit  still  in  the  house  ...  he  felt  that  he  must 
move  about  until  he  was  worn  and  exhausted.  Mrs.  Gra- 
ham was  still  with  Mary,  but  perhaps  by  the  time  he  re- 
turned, they  would  be  able  to  come  downstairs  again.  The 
pride  with  which  Mrs.  Graham  had  supported  herself  in 
her  grief  seemed  to  him  almost  god-like.  Once,  in  the 
South  of  Ireland,  he  had  seen  a  peasant  woman  bidding 
good-bye  to  her  husband.  As  the  train  steamed  out  of  the 
station,  she  howled  like  a  wounded  animal,  spinning  round 
like  a  teetotum,  and  waving  her  hands  and  arms  wildly. 
Her  hair  had  tumbled  down  her  back,  and  her  eyes  seemed 
to  be  melting,  so  freely  did  she  weep  .  .  .  and  then  when 
the  train  had  disappeared  round  a  bend  of  the  track,  she 
dried  her  eyes  and  went  home.  Her  grief,  that  had  seemed 
utterly  inconsolable,  had  been  no  more  than  a  summer 


CHANGING  WINDS  495 

shower.  .  .  .  He  had  had  difficulty  in  preventing  himself 
from  laughing,  and  he  could  not  restrain  a  feeling  of  con- 
tempt for  her.  *  *  They  write  plaj'S  about  that  kind  of  silly 
howling  at  the  Abbey  Theatre,  and  call  it  'the  Celtic 
twilight.'    No  dignity,  no  decency!  ..." 

He  had  heard  sentimental  Englishmen  prating  about 
"the  tragic  soul"  of  Ireland  because  they  had  listened  to 
hired  women  keening  over  the  dead.  "But  that  isn't 
grief,"  he  had  said  to  them.  "They're  paid  to  do  that!" 
The  Irish  liked  to  splash  about  in  their  emotions  .  .  .  they 
wallowed  in  them.  .  .  . 

But  Mrs.  Graham's  grief  was  more  than  a  summer 
shower.  Henry  knew  instinctively  that  Ninian  's  death  had 
killed  her.  She  might  live  for  many  years,  but  she  would 
be  a  dead  woman.  She  would  show  very  little,  nothing,  to 
those  who  looked  to  see  the  signs  of  woe,  but  in  her  heart 
she  would  hoard  her  desolation,  keeping  it  to  herself,  ob- 
truding her  sorrow  on  no  one  .  .  .  waiting  patiently  and 
silently  for  her  day  of  release,  when,  as  her  faith  told  her, 
she  and  her  son  would  come  together  again.  .  .  . 

"It's  unfair,"  he  told  himself,  "to  compare  the  grief 
of  an  illiterate  Irishwoman  with  the  grief  of  an  English 
lady!" 

But  then  he  had  seen  the  grief  of  poor  Englishwomen. 
Four  of  the  Boveyhayne  men  had  been  drowned  in  a  naval 
battle.  He  had  gone  to  the  memorial  service  in  Bovey- 
hayne Church,  and  had  seen  the  friends  of  those  men  min- 
gling their  tears  .  .  .  but  there  had  been  none  of  this  emo- 
tional savagery,  this  howling  like  women  in  kraals,  this 
medicine-man  grief.  .  .  . 


They  were  both  in  the  drawing-room  when  he  returned. 

"I've  written  to  Roger,"  he  said,  to  explain  his  absence. 
"Perhaps,"  he  went  on,  "there  are  other  letters  you'd  like 
me  to  write?" 


496  CHANGING  WINDS 

** Yes,"  she  said,  "it  would  be  kind  of  you,  Henry !  .  .  ." 

There  was  Ninian's  uncle,  the  Dean  of  Exebury,  and  Mr. 
Hare,  with  whom  he  had  worked  .  .  .  they  must  be  told 
at  once  .  .  .  and  there  were  other  relatives,  other  friends. 
.  .  .  He  spent  the  evening  in  doing  the  little  services  that 
must  be  done  when  there  is  death,  and  found  relief  for  his 
mind  in  doing  them. 

"I  told  the  servants,"  he  said,  looking  up  from  a  letter 
he  was  writing.     "  Old  Widger  wanted  to  see  you !  ..." 

* '  Poor  Widger, ' '  she  said.  * '  He  and  Ninian  were  so  fond 
of  each  other!" 

She  got  up  and  went  to  the  door.  *'I  must  go  and  say 
something  to  him,"  she  said.    "He'll  feel  it  so  much !" 

She  closed  the  door  behind  her,  and  he  sat  staring  at  it 
after  she  had  gone.  The  matchless  pride  of  her,  that  she 
could  forget  herself  so  completely  and  think  of  the  subor- 
dinate sorrow  of  her  servant  when  she  might  have  been 
absorbed  by  her  own ! 

He  turned  to  Mary  who  was  sitting  near  him,  and  reached 
out  and  took  her  hand  in  his,  but  neither  of  them  spoke. 

What  was  there  to  say?  Ninian  was  dead  .  .  .  old  men 
had  made  a  war,  and  this  young  man  had  paid  for  it  .  .  . 
and  everywhere  in  Europe,  there  were  mourners  for  the 
young,  slain  for  the  folly  and  incompetence  of  the  old  and 
the  worn  and  the  impatient. 

He  released  IMary's  hand,  and  resumed  the  writing  of  his 
letter.  Before  he  had  finished  it,  Mrs.  Graham  returned  to 
the  room. 

"Poor  Widger,"  she  said,  "he  ...  he  cried!" 

She  came  to  the  table  where  Henry  was  writing,  and 
placed  her  hand  on  his  shoulder,  and  looked  concernedly 
at  him. 

"Aren't  you  tired,  Henry?"  she  said. 

"No,  thanks!"  he  answered,  glancing  up  at  her  and  smil- 
ing. 

"You  mustn't  tire  yourself!"  she  bent  over  him  and 


CHANGING  WINDS  497 

kissed  his  forehead  lightly.     "You've  been  a  great  help, 
Henry,"  she  said. 


But  in  her  room,  where  none  could  see  her,  she  shed  her 
tears.  .  .  . 


THE  TENTH  CHAPTER 

1 

He  had  returned  to  Ireland.  In  Dublin,  he  found  a  strange 
mixture  of  emotions.  Marsh  and  Galway  and  their  friends 
were  drilling  with  greater  determination  than  ever,  and  oc- 
casionally they  were  to  be  seen  parading  the  streets.  Some 
of  them  wore  green  uniforms,  shaped  after  the  pattern  of 
the  khaki  uniform  of  the  British  Army,  but  most  of  them 
wore  their  ordinary  clothes,  with  perhaps  a  bandolier  and 
a  belt  and  a  slouch  hat.  They  carried  rifles  of  an  old  make, 
and  had  long,  clumsy  bayonets  slung  by  their  sides.  It 
seemed  to  Henry  as  he  watched  a  company  of  them  march- 
ing through  College  Green  that  these  men  were  not  of  the 
fighting  breed  .  ,  .  that  these  pale  clerks  and  young  work- 
men and  elderly  professors  and  hungry,  emaciated  labour- 
ers were  unlikely  to  deal  in  the  serious  work  of  war  .  .  . 
and  when  he  met  John  Marsh  in  the  evening,  he  sneered 
at  him.  Marsh  kept  his  temper.  He 'was  more  tolerant 
now  than  he  had  been  in  the  days  when  he  had  tutored 
Henry  at  Ballymartin.  He  admitted  that  the  Sinn  Feiners 
were  widely  unpopular.  There  were  many  reasons  why 
they  should  be.  Dublin  was  full  of  men  and  women  mourn- 
ing for  their  sons  who  had  died  at  Suvla  Bay  .  .  .  and 
were  in  no  mood  for  rebellion. 

"The  war's  popular  in  the  Combe,"  he  said.  "The 
women  are  better  off  now  than  they  were  in  peace  times. 
That's  a  handsome  tribute  to  civilisation,  isn't  it?  The 
country  people  are  the  worst.  They're  rich  .  .  .  the  war's 
bringing  them  extraordinary  prosperity  .  .  .  and  some  of 
our  people  are  tactless.  But  we've  got  to  go  on.  We've 
got  to  save  Ireland's  soul!  ..." 

498 


i 


CHANGING  WINDS  499 

Henry  made  an  impatient  gesture.  *'Why  do  you  talk 
that  high-f alutin '  stuff,"  he  said. 

"It  isn't  high-f  alutin'  stuff,  Henry.  I'm  speaking  what 
I  believe  to  be  the  truth.  The  English  have  tried  a  new 
way  to  kill  the  Irish  spirit,  and  by  God  they  look  like  suc- 
ceeding. They  couldn't  kill  it  by  persecuting  us,  they 
couldn't  kill  it  by  ruining  us,  but  they  may  kill  it  by  mak- 
ing us  prosperous.  I  feel  heart-broken  when  I  talk  to  the 
farmers.  Money!  That's  all  they  think  about.  They  rob 
their  children  of  their  milk  and  feed  them  on  tea,  so's  they 
can  make  a  few  more  pence.  Oh,  they're  being  anglicised, 
Henry!  If  we  can  only  blow  some  of  the  greed  out  of 
them,  we'll  have  done  something  worth  while!" 

He  was  more  convinced  now  than  ever  that  the  Irish 
were  to  be  betrayed  by  the  English  after  the  war. 

"Look  how  they  minimise  our  men's  bravery  at  the  front. 
Even  the  Irish  Times  is  protesting!  ..." 

It  seemed  to  Henry  to  be  ridiculous  to  believe  that  the 
English  government  was  deliberately  depreciating  the  work 
of  the  Irish  soldiers,  and  he  said  so.  "They  hardly  men- 
tion the  names  of  any  regiments,"  he  pointed  out. 

But  John  ]\Iarsh  had  an  answer  for  him.  He  produced  a 
despatch  written  by  a  British  admiral  in  which  was  nar- 
rated the  story  of  the  landing  at  Suvla  Bay  and  the  beaches 
about  Gallipoli. 

"He  mentioned  the  name  of  every  regiment  that  took 
part  in  the  landing,  except  the  two  Irish  regiments  that  did 
the  hardest  work  and  suffered  the  most  deaths.  I  suppose 
that  was  an  accident,  Henry,  a  little  oversight ! ' ' 

"You  don't  think  he  left  them  out  on  purpose,  do 
you?" 

"I  do.  So  does  every  man  in  Ireland,  Unionist  or  Na- 
tionalist. You  see,  we  know  this  man  in  Ireland  .  .  .  he'a 
a  well-known  Unionist  ...  a  bigot  .  .  .  and  there  isn't  a 
person  in  Ireland  who  doesn't  believe  that  he  deliberately 
left  the  names  of  Dublins  and  the  IMunsters  out  of  his  des- 
patch.   He  forgot,  when  he  was  writing  it,  that  he  was  a 


600  CHANGING  WINDS 

sailor,  and  remembered  only  that  he  was  a  politician  .  .  . 
the  kind  that  dances  on  dead  men 's  graves ! ' ' 

It  was  difficult  to  argue  with  INIarsh  or  with  any  one  who 
thought  as  he  thought,  in  face  of  that  despatch.  The  omis- 
sion was  inexplicable  if  one  did  not  accept  the  explanation 
offered  by  Marsh.  The  tradition  of  the  sea  is  an  honour- 
able one,  and  sailors  do  not  do  things  like  that  .  .  .  the 
scurvy  acts  of  the  cheaper  politicians.  .  .  . 

"You  make  a  fence  about  your  mind,  John,"  said  Henry, 
"and  you  spend  all  your  efforts  in  strengthening  it,  so 
that  you  haven't  time  either  to  look  over  it  and  see  what's 
beyond  it,  or  to  cultivate  what's  inside  it.  You're  just 
building  up  barriers,  when  you  should  be  knocking  them 
down ! ' ' 

It  was  useless  to  be  angry  with  Marsh  or  to  argue  with 
him.  In  everything  that  was  done,  he  saw  the  malevolent 
intent  of  a  treacherous  people. 

"Look  at  this,"  he  said  one  evening  when  the  English 
papers  had  come  in,  and  he  pointed  to  a  leading  article  in 
the  Morning  Post  in  which  the  writer  stated  that  the  brav- 
ery of  the  Irish  soldiers  showed  that  the  Irish  people  had 
now  no  feeling  or  grievance  against  the  English,  and  there- 
fore Home  Rule  was  no  longer  necessary.  "Already, 
they're  plotting!  They  defile  the  dead  .  .  .  they  use  our 
dead  men  as  ...  as  political  arguments!" 

"But  the  Morning  Post  has  no  influence  in  England," 
Henry  retorted  angrily.  "It's  only  read  by  footmen  and 
sluts!  .  .  ." 

"Some  of  our  people  are  dubious,"  John  went  on. 
"They're  inclined  to  take  your  point  of  view,  and  trust 
the  English.  I'll  read  this  paper  to  them.  That'll  pull 
them  up.  We  'd  have  been  content  with  Home  Rule  before, 
but  we  want  absolute  separation  now.  We  don't  want 
to  be  associated  with  a  race  that  makes  bargains  on 
bodies!  .  .  ." 

"You're  doing  a  damned  bad  work,  John!  ..." 


CHANGING  WINDS  601 

"I'm  helping  to  keep  Ireland  Irish,  Henry!"  He 
paused  for  a  few  moments,  and  then,  laughing  a  little  self- 
consciously, he  proceeded.  "Do  you  know  that  poem  of 
Yeats 's?" 


It's  with  O'Leary  in  the  grave. 
Romantic  Ireland's  dead  and  gone, 


Henry  nodded  his  head. 
"Well,  we're  going  to  see  whether  we  can't  make  Yeats 
re- write  it.     Good-night,  Henry!" 


He  stayed  in  Dublin  for  a  few  weeks,  gathering  up  old 
threads  and  working  on  his  novel ;  but  the  book  made  slow 
progress,  and  so,  thinking  that  if  he  were  in  a  quieter,  less 
social  place,  he  could  work  more  quickly,  he  went  home  to 
Ballymartin,  and  here,  soon  after  he  arrived,  he  received 
a  letter  from  Roger,  announcing  that  he  intended  to  enter 
the  artillery  almost  at  once.  "/  can  get  a  commission,"  he 
wrote,  "and  so  I  shall  go  in.  You  said  something  about 
wanting  to  join  at  the  same  time  as  me,  hut  perhaps  as  you 
are  going  to  he  married  to  Mary  shortly,  you'll  want  to 
wait  until  afterwards.  If  I  were  you  I  should  apply  for 
a  commission  in  an  Irish  regiment." 

He  put  the  letter  down  abruptly.  Ever  since  the  death 
of  Ninian,  he  had  felt  convinced  that  the  four  friends  were 
to  be  killed  in  battle.  Gilbert  had  been  the  first  to  join, 
and  Gilbert  was  the  first  to  be  killed.  Then  Ninian  joined 
.  .  .  and  Ninian  died.  Roger,  too,  would  be  killed,  and  so 
would  he,  when  he  joined.  The  death  of  Gilbert  had 
seemed  to  him  to  be  a  casual  thing,  a  tragic  accident,  but 
when  Ninian  had  been  killed,  it  had  seemed  to  him  that 
here  was  no  fortuity,  that  Gilbert  and  Ninian  had  died  in- 
evitably, that  Roger  and  he,  when  they  went  out,  would  be 
unable  to  escape  this  destiny  .  .  .  and  everything  that  he 


60%  CHANGING  WINDS 

had  done  since  Ninian  's  death  had  been  done  in  that  belief. 
He  would  finish  a  book,  he  would  marry  JNIary,  he  would 
settle  his  estate  as  best  he  could  .  .  .  and  then  he 
would  make  the  end  that  Gilbert  and  Ninian  had 
made.  .  .  . 

But  now,  as  he  put  Roger's  letter  down,  he  had  a  swift, 
compelling  desire  to  dodge  his  destiny,  to  elude  death,  to 
alter  the  course  of  things.  Why  should  he  die?  Why 
should  he  yield  himself  up,  his  youth,  his  work,  his  love, 
his  hope  of  happiness  and  renown  and  honour  ...  to  this 
consuming  thing?  He  could  look  to  years  of  happiness 
with  Mary,  years  of  work  on  his  books,  years  of  enjoyment 
of  things  won  and  earned  .  .  .  and  he  was  to  give  up  all 
that  promise  and  go  to  a  bloody  death  in  war  ?  Not  every 
man  who  went  was  killed  or  even  wounded  .  .  .  one  knew 
that  .  .  .  but  he  would  be  killed  ...  he  knew  that,  he 
told  himself,  as  well  as  he  knew  that  he  was  then  alive. 
Sensitive-natured  men,  such  as  he,  were  bound  to  be  killed 
.  .  .  they  had  not  the  phlegm  of  men  with  blunter  natures 
.  .  .  they  would  not  be  able  to  keep  still  when  stillness 
meant  safety  .  .  .  their  nerves  would  go,  and  in  that  hid- 
eous hell  of  noise  and  battering,  of  men  killing  or  being 
killed,  his  mind  might  be  destroyed.  .  .  . 

That  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  worst  thing  of  all.  He 
might  not  be  killed  ...  he  might  be  made  mad.  .  .  . 

"I  can  do  other  work,"  he  said  to  himself.  "I  can  work 
for  Ireland.  I  can  try  to  make  things  friendlier 
here!  .  .  ." 

He  planned  a  group  of  Young  Irishmen,  as  he  named 
them,  to  do  for  Ireland  what  Roger's  Improved  Tories  had 
hoped  to  do  for  England.  They  could  study  the  conditions 
of  Irish  elementary  education;  they  could  try  to  make  a 
survey  of  Irish  wealth  in  the  hope  of  discovering  the  inci- 
dence of  its  distribution ;  they  could  make  an  enquiry  into 
work  and  wages,  and  try  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  Trades 
Unionism.  He  could  help  to  make  opinion,  to  create  a 
social  consciousness,  to  establish  a  tradition  of  honourable 


CHANGING  WINDS  603 

service  to  the  community.  .  .  .  There  were  a  host  of  things 
he  could  do,  vahiable  things,  for  Ireland,  things  that  were 
not  now  being  done  by  any  one.  He  knew  people  in  Dub- 
lin, Crews  and  Jordan  and  Saxon  and  men  like  them,  who 
were  of  his  mind  and  would  work  patiently  at  dull  things 
in  the  hope  of  getting  an  ordered  community.  Railways! 
One  had  to  get  the  Irish  railways  reorganised  and  grouped. 
If  one  could  solve  the  problem  of  traffic,  so  that  the  East 
and  West  and  North  and  South  of  Ireland  would  be  as 
accessible  to  each  other  as  the  East  and  West  and  North  and 
South  of  England,  one  would  have  made  a  large  movement 
towards  a  better  state.  .  .  . 

That  was  what  he  would  do.  He  would  help  to  construct 
things,  not  to  destroy  them.  He  was  not  afraid  to  go  to 
the  war  .  .  .  that  was  not  the  reason  why  he  was  resolving 
that  he  would  refuse  to  be  a  soldier.  It  was  because  he 
could  do  better,  finer  work  by  living  for  Ireland  than  by 
dying  for  England.  People  throughout  Europe  were  al- 
ready perturbed  at  the  waste  of  potential  men  in  war  .  .  . 
wondering  whether,  after  all,  it  was  a  wise  thing  to  let 
rare  men,  men  of  unique  gifts  go  to  war.  Was  it  really 
wise  of  England  to  let  such  a  man  as  Gilbert  Farlow,  with 
the  rare  gift  of  comedy,  be  lost  in  that  haphazard  manner  ? 
Ninian  had  had  the  potentialities  of  a  great  engineer. 
Would  it  not  have  been  wiser  to  have  kept  him  to  his 
railway-building  than  to  have  let  him  fall,  as  he  fell,  to 
the  bullet  of  a  sniper?  .  .  .  Already  people  were  asking 
such  questions  as  these.  If  he  were  to  go  out,  and  were  to 
be  killed,  would  they  not  say,  "This  man  had  gifts  that 
marked  him  out  from  other  men.  We  ought  not  to  have 
wasted  him!"  Well,  why  should  he  be  wasted?  He  was 
not  afraid.  He  insisted  that  he  was  not  afraid.  It  needed 
high  courage  to  stand  up  and  say,  "I  am  a  man  of  special 
gift  and  I  will  not  let  that  gift  be  wasted  in  war ! ' '  That, 
in  effect,  was  what  he  was  preparing  to  do.  People  would 
speak  behind  his  back  .  .  .  speak  even  to  his  face  .  .  .  and 
call  him  a  coward !    Well,  let  them  do  so.  .  .  . 


504  CHANGING  WINDS 


But  in  his  heart,  he  knew  that  he  was  afraid  to  go.  Al- 
most he  deceived  himself  into  believing  that  he  was  behav- 
ing well  in  refusing  to  join  the  Army  so  that  he  might 
devote  himself  more  assiduously  to  Ireland  and  his  work 
.  .  .  but  not  completely  did  he  persuade  himself.  The 
fear  of  death  was  in  him  and  he  could  not  allay  it.  The 
fear  of  mutilation,  of  madness,  of  blindness,  of  shattered 
nerves  sent  him  shuddering  from  the  thought  of  offering 
himself  as  a  soldier  .  .  .  and  mixed  up  with  this  devastat- 
ing fear  was  a  queer  vanity  that  almost  conquered  the 
fear. 

"  If  I  were  to  go  in,  I  might  do  something  .  .  .  something 
distinguished!" 

There  were  times  when  he  gave  himself  up  to  dreams  of 
glory,  saw  himself  decorated  with  high  awards  for  bravery. 
He  would  imagine  himself  performing  some  impossible  act 
of  courage  .  .  .  saving  an  Army  Corps  from  destruction 
.  .  .  showing  resource  in  a  period  of  crisis,  and  so  bringing 
salvation  where  utter  loss  had  seemed  inevitable.  But 
these  times  of  glory  were  few  and  brief:  he  saw  himself 
most  often,  killed  ingloriously,  inconspicuously,  one  of  a 
crowd,  blown,  perhaps,  to  pieces  or  buried  in  bombarded 
earthworks ;  and  through  his  dreams  of  glory  and  his  plans 
for  work  in  Ireland,  there  stubbornly  thrust  itself  this  ac- 
cusation :    I  'm  a  coward !    I  'm  a  coward !     I  'm  a  coward ! 

In  England,  men  were  charging  the  queer  people  who 
called  themselves  Conscientious  Objectors  with  cowardice, 
but  the  charge  seemed  a  baseless  one  to  Henry.  He  did 
not  believe  that  he  could  endure  the  odium  and  obloquy 
which  some  of  the  Conscientious  Objectors  had  borne. 
There  was  courage  in  the  man  who  said,  * '  I  will  fight  for  my 
country!"  but  that  courage  might  be  less  than  that  of  the 
man  who  said,  '  *  I  will  not  fight  for  my  country ! ' '  Henry 
was  not  a  Conscientious  Objector,  nor  could  he  understand 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  man  who  was.    He  was  a  coward. 


CHANGING  WINDS  605 

Inside  him,  he  knew  that  he  was  a  coward.  Inside  him, 
he  accused  himself  of  cowardice.  Everything  in  his  life 
showed  that  he  was  a  coward,  that  he  shrank  from  physical 
combats,  from  tests  of  courage,  that  sometimes  he  shrank 
from  spiritual  contests.  .  .  . 

**I  ought  to  tell  Mary,"  he  said  to  himself.  "I  can't 
marry  her  without  telling  her  that  I'm  ...  a  funk!" 

But  he  temporised  even  in  this.  "  I  '11  wait  a  little  while 
longer,"  he  said.     "Perhaps  later  on!  .  .  ." 

Always  he  wanted  to  thrust  the  unpleasant  thing  a  little 
further  off.  It  was  as  if  he  had  said  to  himself,  "I  won't 
deal  with  it  just  yet  .  .  .  and  perhaps  it  won't  need  to  be 
dealt  with!" 

"I'll  finish  my  book  first,"  he  said,  "and  then  I'll  tell 
Mary.    Perhaps  the  war  will  be  over!  ..." 


Mary  wrote  to  him  twice  every  week.  Rachel  Carey 
and  her  baby  were  staying  at  Boveyhayne  Manor  now,  and 
Mary  was  glad  of  their  company  in  the  house,  for  the  child 
gave  ]\Irs.  Graham  pleasure.  She  enquired  continually 
about  his  book.  ''What  a  pity,"  she  wrote  once,  "that  it 
was  not  finished  before  Roger  went  into  the  Army.  Then 
you  could  both  have  gone  in  together."  And  he  had  writ- 
ten, "Yes,  it  is  a  pity  the  book  was  not  done  before  Roger 
joined  up  .  .  .  hut  it'll  soon  be  finished.  I'm  getting  on 
excellently  with  it.  When  it's  finished,  I'll  come  over  to 
Boveyhayne,  and  then  we'll  settle  just  when  we  shall  get 
married!  ..." 

Then  came  a  mood  of  abasement,  and  he  wrote  a  long, 
incoherent  letter  to  her,  telling  her  that  he  had  resolved 
that  he  would  not  go  into  the  Army.  "Because  I'm  a  cow- 
ard, Mary.  I've  thought  the  thing  over  from  beginning 
to  end,  thought  about  it  until  I  became  dizzy  with  thinking, 
and  this  is  the  end  of  it  all:  I'm  a  coward.  I  haven't  the 
pluck  to  go  into  the  Army.    That's  the  truth,  Mary!    I 


506  CHANGING  WINDS 

make  excuses  for  myself  .  .  .  I  pretend  that  this  is  Eng- 
land's war,  not  Ireland's,  and  tell  myself  that  an  Irishman 
who  joins  the  British  Army  should  be  regarded  in  the  way 
that  an  American,  who  joined,  would  he  regarded  .  .  . 
that  Irish  soldiers  in  the  British  Army  are  Foreign  Legion- 
aries .  .  .  and  I  twist  my  mind  about  in  an  effort  to  make 
excuses  like  that,  to  convince,  not  you  or  any  one  else,  but 
me.  I  think  I  could  convince  you  that  I  ought  not  to  join, 
but  I  can't  convince  myself.  I'm  not  joining,  simply  be- 
cause I'm  a  damned  coward,  Mary.  I'm  not  fit  to  be  your 
husband,  dear.  I  wasn't  fit  to  be  the  friend  of  Gilbert  and 
Ninian.  I'm  a  contemptible  thing  that  runs  to  its  burrow 
when  it  hears  of  danger.  I'm  glad  my  father  is  dead.  He 
hated  the  war,  but  he'd  have  hated  to  know  that  I  was  not 
in  it.  He  took  it  for  granted  that  I  would  go  .  .  .  never 
dreamed  that  I  wouldn't  go.  If  he'd  thought  that  I 
wouldn't  join,  he  would  never  have  talked  to  me  about  the 
war  in  the  way  he  did.  My  father  was  a  proud  man, 
Mary,  as  proud  as  your  mother,  and  I  think  he'd  have  died 
of  shame  if  he'd  thought  I  was  funking  this.  I  don't 
know  what  you'll  think  of  me.  I  know  what  I  think  of 
myself.  I  simply  can't  face  it,  Mary  .  .  .  that  bloodiness 
and  groaning  and  stench  and  unending  horror.  That's 
the  truth  about  me.  I'm  a  coward,  and  I'm  not  fit  for  you. 
I'd  fail  you,  dear,  if  you  needed  me.  I  fail  everybody. 
I  fail  everything.    I'm  rotten  through  and  through.  ..." 

5 

But  he  did  not  send  the  letter  to  her.  He  had  read  it 
over  before  putting  it  in  the  envelope.  "Hysterical,"  he 
said  to  himself,  calmer  now  that  he  had  vented  his  feelings. 
"That's  what  it  is!" 

He  was  about  to  tear  it  up,  but  before  he  could  do  so, 
his  mind  veered  again.  " I '11  put  it  away, "  he  said.  "I'll 
leave  it  until  the  morning,  and  read  it  again.  Perhaps 
I'll  think  differently  then.     I  ought  to  tell  Mary.     I  can't 


CHANGING  WINDS  607 

go  on  just  not  joining,  and  letting  her  gradually  suspect. 
I  ought  to  go  to  her,  and  tell  her  straight  out.  When  my 
book's  done  I'll  go  to  her,  ..." 

"What  sort  of  a  man  am  I?"  he  said  again.  "Analys- 
ing myself  like  this  .  .  .  turning  myself  inside  out  .  .  . 
poking  and  probing  into  my  mind !  .  .  .  Fumbling  over  my 
life,  that's  what  I'm  doing!  Why  don't  I  stand  up  to 
things?  What's  the  meaning  of  me?  What  am  I  here 
for?" 

If  he  could  only  strip  himself  to  the  marrow  of  his 
mind,  if  he  could  only  see  inside  himself  and  know  what 
was  his  purpose  and  discover  the  content  of  his  being.  .  .  . 

"I'm  morbid,"  he  said.  "I'm  too  introspective.  I 
ought  to  look  out  of  myself.  But  I  can't.  It  isn't  my 
fault  that  my  eyes  are  turned  inwards.  I'm  made  like 
that.  I  can't  alter  my  make.  I  can  destroy  myself,  but 
I  can't  alter  my  make.  .  .  . 

"Perhaps,"  he  thought,  "if  I  were  to  take  more  exer- 
cise, if  I  were  to  go  for  long  walks,  I'd  think  less  about 
these  things.  I'd  get  healthier  notions.  If  I  were  to  en- 
list, go  into  the  ranks,  and  endure  all  that  the  men  endure, 
that  might  make  my  mind  healthier.  All  that  drill  and 
marching.  .  .  . 

"But  it's  the  spirit  of  me  that's  wrong,"  he  muttered 
aloud.     "It's  not  my  body  .  .  .  it's  me/ 

"I  must  work.  I  must  work  hard,  and  forget  all  this 
torturing!  ..." 

He  wrote  furiously  at  his  book,  and  gradually  it  came  to 
its  end.  "I'll  go  down  to  Dublin  again,"  he  said,  when 
it  was  finished  "and  see  if  I  can't  do  something  there  that'll 
make  me  forget  things!" 

He  stayed  at  Ballymartin  until  he  had  corrected  the 
proofs  of  the  new  book,  and  then  some  business  on  the 
estate  kept  him  at  home  for  nearly  another  month.  It  was 
not  until  well  in  the  New  Year  that  he  was  able  to  leave 
home,  and  almost  at  the  last  moment  he  decided  not  to  go 
to  Dublin,  but  to  travel  from  Belfast,  by  Liverpool,  to 


608  CHANGING  WINDS 

Boveyhayne.  Mary  had  asked  him  to  spend  Christmas 
with  them,  but  he  had  made  an  excuse :  estate  business  and 
his  book ;  because  he  could  not  yet  bring  himself  to  tell  her 
of  his  cowardice.  He  felt  that  when  he  did  so,  she  would 
end  their  engagement,  and  he  wished  to  keep  her  love  as 
long  as  he  could.  He  wrote  to  her  very  frequently,  more 
frequently  than  she  wrote  to  him,  telling  her  of  Irish  af- 
fairs. She  had  had  difficulty  in  understanding  so  many 
things,  but  she  was  eager  to  know  about  them.  He  had 
filled  a  letter  with  bitter  complaint  of  the  corruption  in 
Irish  civic  life,  and  she  had  asked  why  he  believed  in  Home 
Rule.  ''If  you  can't  trust  these  people  to  manage  a  munici- 
pality, how  can  you  trust  them  to  manage  a  nation?" 
And  he  had  written  a  lengthy  epistle  on  the  state  of  Ireland. 
"You  see,  dear,"  he  wrote,  ''it  isn't  reasonaUe  to  expect 
us  to  undo  in  a  generatio7i  work  which  it  took  your  country 
several  centuries  to  do.  Your  people  have  steadily  de- 
stroyed and  corrupted  my  people.  I  know  they're  trying 
to  make  amends,  hut  they  mustn't  expect  miracles.  You 
can't  wave  a  wand  over  Ireland,  and  say  'Let  there  he 
light!'  and  instantly  get  light.  You've  got  to  rememher 
that  Ireland  is  populated  largely  hy  the  dregs  of  Ireland 
.  .  .  what  was  left  after  your  countrymen  had  persecuted 
and  exiled  and  hanged  the  most  vigorous  and  most  cour- 
ageous men  we  had  .  .  .  and  it'll  take  a  generation  or  two, 
more  perhaps,  to  get  a  decent  level  again.  The  most  power- 
ful man  in  Duhlin  at  this  minute  is  a  haherdasher  who 
owns  almost  everything  there  is  to  own:  newspapers,  con- 
veyances and  heaven  knows  what;  and  he  has  the  mind  of 
.  .  .  well,  an  early  nineteenth-century  mill-owner!  John 
Marsh  spends  a  deal  of  time  in  vilifying  the  English  as  a 
mean-minded  people,  hut  my  God,  he  has  only  got  to  look 
round  the  corner  in  Duhlin,  to  see  mean-minded  men  hy  the 
hundred.  He  wrote  to  me  the  other  day,  crowing  hecause 
his  Volunteers  had  prevented  the  application  of  conscrip- 
tion to  Ireland,  and  that's  a  frame  of  mind  I  don't  under- 
stand.   He's  an  idealist,  hut  all  his  ideals  are  heing  em- 


CHANGING  WINDS  609 

ployed  to  enable  mean-minded  and  greedy  men  like  the 
farmers  to  go  on  being  more  mean-minded  and  greedier. 
The  principal  argument  seems  to  be  that  the  Irishman  must 
stay  at  home  and  ynake  money  out  of  the  war.  That's  a 
long  way  from  the  days  of  the  'wild  geese'  and  the  order 
of  chivalry,  isn't  it? 

"I'm  a  Home  Rider  because  I  want  to  see  a  sense  of 
responsibility  cultivated  in  these  people,  and  you  can't 
have  a  sense  of  responsibility  until  you've  got  something 
for  which  you  are  responsible.  I  don't  doubt  that  out  of 
this  heart-breaking  population,  a  decent-minded  population 
will  come.  After  all,  the  first  settlers  in  Australia  weren't 
much  better  than  the  people  who  control  the  Dublin  Cor- 
poration, were  they?  If  John  Marsh  had  been  about  the 
world  more,  had  had  to  manage  things,  and  if  Mineely  and 
Connolly  and  the  Dublin  Labour  people  had  not  been  em- 
bittered beyond  all  sanity  of  judgment  by  that  haberdasher 
I  mentioned  earlier  in  this  letter,  they'd  have  been  useful 
in  the  way  that  I  want  Crews  and  Jordan  and  Saxon  and 
all  those  patient  people  to  be  useful. 

"I  wish  you  could  meet  Crews  and  Jordan  and  Saxon. 
They're  very  dissimilar,  but  they've  got  something  like 
the  unifying  motive  of  a  monastery,  and  they're  willing  to 
serve  and  to  plod  and  to  be  patient.  I  fight  with  Saxon 
because  he's  a  pacifist,  but  like  all  pacifists  he's  a  very 
pugnacious  person,  and  he  can  get  frightfully  angry,  but 
it's  pitiful  to  see  him  when  he's  been  angry,  because  he's 
so  sorry  afterwards.  I'm  not  a  pacifist,  but  I  haven't  a 
tenth  of  his  pluck.  He'd  endure  anything,  that  man. 
Crews  and  Jordan  are  younger  than  he,  and  very  brainy. 
Crews  looks  as  if  he  were  one  of  the  Don't-Care-a-Damn 
Brigade  .  .  .  Dublin's  full  of  them  .  .  .  but  he  does  care. 
He  has  a  curiously  subtle  brain,  and  I  do  not  know  any 
one  so  imperturbable  as  he  is.  He  never  loses  his  temper 
.  .  .  at  least  I've  never  seen  him  lose  it  .  .  .  except,  so  he 
says,  with  stockbrokers  and  haberdashers  and  that  kind  of 
rubbish.    Jordan  is  one  of  the  brai^iiest  men  in  Ireland  .  .  . 


610  CHANGING  WINDS 

that,  I  suppose,  is  because  he  has  got  some  English  hlood  in 
him:  a  cynical-looking  man,  hut  that's  all  his  fun.  And  he 
works,  my  goodness,  he  works! 

''It's  with  men  like  these  that  I  want  to  work,  because 
I  believe  that  they  will  prepare  the  place  for  the  founda- 
tion of  a  decent  commonwealth.  They  aren't  miracle- 
mongers,  thank  God,  like  John  Marsh  and  Galway  and  Min- 
eely.  They  aren't  up  in  the  sky  to-day  and  down  in  the 
mud  to-morrow.    They  keep  to  the  level. 

''Then  there's  the  Plunkett  House  lot.  You  remember,  I 
told  you  about  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  and  th$  Co-operative 
Movement.  Well,  I  want  to  get  Crews  and  Jordan  and 
Saxon  to  li^ik  themselves  on  to  the  Plunkett  House  people 
and  form  the  nucleus  of  a  new  Irish  Group.  There  are  a 
few  of  the  men  at  Trinity  College  who  will  come  into  it, 
hut  I'm  afraid  all  the  men  at  the  National  University  are 
under  the  influence  of  Marsh  and  MacDonagh  and  the 
sloppy  romantics. 

"You  see,  dear,  don't  you,  that  this  job  of  making  a 
commonwealth  of  worth  in  Ireland  is  a  long  and  difficult 
one.  That's  why  we've  got  to  be  very  patient.  Every- 
thing's against  us.  We  have  a  contemptible  press,  a  cow- 
ardly crowd  of  corrupt  politicians,  a  greedy  people,  an  ig- 
norant and  bigoted  priesthood  (that  includes  the  Protestant 
clergy)  and  a  complete  lack  of  social  consciousness  and  plan 
of  life.  But  then,  what's  life  for,  if  it  isn't  to  cope  with 
difficulties  like  that.  .  .  ." 


There  was  snow,  thick  and  long-lying,  on  the  ground 
when  he  reached  Boveyhayne,  and  the  crunch-crunch  of  it 
under  their  feet,  as  Mary  and  he  walked  home,  gave  him  a 
feeling  of  pleasure,  and  the  cold,  bracing  air  exhilarated 
him  so  that  he  laughed  at  things  which  would  otherwise 
barely  have  made  him  smile.  The  antics  of  Rachel's 
daughter,  as  related  to  him  by  Mary,  seemed  extraordi- 


CHANGING  WINDS  511 

narily  entertaining,  and  when  he  drew  Mary's  arm  in  his 
and  pressed  it  tightly,  he  felt  that  there  was  nothing  in 
heaven  or  on  earth  more  to  be  desired  than  the  love  of  a 
woman  and  the  love  of  a  child.  He  had  a  sense  of  age, 
of  a  passed  boundary,  that  made  him  feel  much  older 
than  Mary.  "Here  I  am,  listening  to  her  as  she  talks 
gaily  about  a  child's  pranks,  nodding  my  head  and  laugh- 
ing, too  .  .  .  and  in  a  little  while  I  shall  tell  her  every- 
thing .  .  .  and  then  I  shall  go  .  .  .  and  we  will  not  laugh 
again  together.  I'm  holding  her  arm  closely  in  mine,  and 
presently  I  shall  kiss  her  lips,  and  she  will  put  her  arms 
about  me  with  the  careless  intimacy  of  lovers  .  .  .  and 
then  I  shall  tell  her  everything  .  .  .  and  she  will  kiss  me 
no  more  .  .  ,  and  our  intimacy  will  shrivel  up!  .  .  ." 

He  wished  to  prolong  his  pleasure  in  this  walk  through 
the  snow,  and  so  he  took  her  back  to  the  JManor  by  long 
roads  and  roundabout  ways.  They  did  not  climb  up  the 
old  path  over  the  cliff  because  that  was  so  much  shorter 
than  the  hair-pin  road.  ...  "I  must  tell  her  soon,"  he 
said  to  himself,  "but  before  I  tell  her,  I  must  feel  the  most 
of  her  love  for  me ! " 

He  listened  to  her,  not  for  what  she  was  saying,  but  for 
the  sound  of  her  voice,  and  made  short  answers  to  her  so 
that  he  might  interrupt  the  flow  of  her  speech  as  little  as 
possible.  When  he  returned  along  this  road,  he  would 
come  alone  and  for  the  last  time,  and  so,  that  his  memory 
of  her  might  be  full,  he  would  be  no  more  than  her  auditor 
and  watcher.  Just  to  have  her  by  his  side,  her  arm  in  his, 
and  hear  her  .  .  .  that  was  sufficient. 

They  walked  through  the  village  and  when  they  came 
to  Boveyhayne  lane,  he  said  to  her,  "Isn't  there  a  longer 
way,  Mary?"  and  she  laughed  at  him,  bantering  him  be- 
cause of  his  sudden  desire  for  exercise;  but  she  yielded  to 
him,  and  they  took  the  longer  road  that  led  them  past  the 
Roman  quarries  to  the  fir  tree,  standing  in  isolation  where 
the  main  roads  meet. 

"Mary,"  he  said,  as  they  came  in  sight  of  the  house, 


612  CHANGING  WINDS 

**I  want  to  tell  you  something  .  .  .  something  impor- 
tant! ..." 

**Yes,  Quinny?" 

"But  not  now,  dear.  To-night!  Or  to-morrow,  per- 
haps!" 

She  pinched  his  cheek  in  a  pretence  at  anger.  "You 
were  always  very  vague,  Quinny ! ' '  she  said. 

** I  know, "  he  answered.  "It's  a  kind  of  .  .  .  cowardice, 
that,  isn't  it?  I'm  vague  because  I  dislike  ...  am  afraid 
...  to  be  definite.    I  'm  a  frightful  coward,  Mary !  .  .  . " 

He  might  approach  the  subject  by  these  devious  ways, 
he  told  himself.  He  had  not  meant  to  talk  to  her  about  his 
failure  in  courage  until  she  and  he  could  be  alone  in  the 
evening  .  .  .  this  walk  together  was  to  be  the  final  lovers' 
stroll,  unmarred  by  any  bitterness  .  .  .  but  even  in  his 
effort  to  postpone  the  time  of  telling,  he  had  prepared  to 
tell  her  .  .  .  and  perhaps  it  was  better  that  she  should 
know  now.  Here,  indeed,  in  this  snowy  silence,  they  were 
free  from  any  intrusion.  It  might  not  be  possible  to  make 
his  confession  to  her  without  interruption  from  Rachel  or 
Mrs.  Graham  .  .  .  and  some  feeling  for  the  fitness  of 
things  made  him  decide  that  this  outdoor  scene  was  a  bet- 
ter place  for  his  purpose  than  the  lamplit  interior  of  the 
Manor.  Through  the  blown  branches  of  the  hedges  he 
could  see  the  thick  sheets  of  snow  spread  over  the  fields. 
The  boughs  of  the  fruit-trees  in  the  orchard  showed  very 
black  beneath  their  white  covering,  as  if  they  felt  cold, 
and  he  looked  away  quickly  to  the  haystacks  in  the  farm- 
yard that  seemed  so  warm  in  spite  of  the  snow.  The  dusk 
was  drawing  in,  and  the  grey  sky  was  darkening  for  the 
night.  .  .  . 

"Mary,"  he  said,  so  abruptly  that  she  looked  up  at  him 
enquiringly.    "Let's  walk  back  a  little  way.  ..." 

"But,  Quinny,  it's  getting  late.  They'll  wonder  what's 
happened  to  us!" 

"I  want  to  tell  you  .  .  .  now,  Mary!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  513 

He  compelled  her  to  turn,  as  he  spoke,  and  they  walked 
slowly  back  towards  the  fir  tree. 

"What  is  it,  Quinny?"  she  asked  tenderly,  as  if  she 
would  comfort  him. 

"I  ...  I  want  to  tell  you  something!" 

"Yes?" 

"I  hardly  know  how  to  begin.  It's  very  difiScult, 
dear.  .  .  ." 

"What  is  it,  Quinny?"  she  demanded,  more  anxiously. 

But  still  he  would  not  tell  her  ...  he  must  have  her 
love  a  little  longer. 

"Mary,  I  love  you  so  much,  dear  ...  oh,  I  feel  like  a 
fool  when  I  try  to  tell  you  how  much  I  love  you ! ' ' 

* '  I  know  you  love  me,  Quinny ! ' ' 

"And  now  .  .  .  this  very  minute  ...  I  love  you  far 
more  than  I've  ever  loved  you.  Every  bit  of  me  is  in  love 
with  you,  Mary.    You're  very  sweet  and  dear!  ..." 

She  had  a  sense  of  impending  disaster,  but  she  did  not 
express  it  in  her  words.  "And  I  love  you,  Quinny!"  she 
said.  "I  can't  love  you  more  than  I've  always  loved 
you!  .  .  ." 

"Could  you  love  me  less  than  you've  always  loved  me?" 
he  asked,  turning  and  standing  before  her  so  that  his  eyes 
were  looking  into  hers. 

*  *  I  don 't  know, ' '  she  answered.     "  I  've  never  tried ! ' ' 

He  did  not  say  any  more  for  a  few  moments,  but  stood 
with  his  hands  on  her  shoulders,  looking  steadily  into  her 
eyes,  while  she  looked  steadily  into  his.  Then  he  took  his 
hands  from  her  shoulders  and  drew  her  into  the  shelter  of 
his  arms,  and  kissed  her,  letting  his  lips  lie  long  on  hers. 

"What  do  you  want  to  tell  me?"  she  said  in  a  whisper. 


Then  he  told  her. 

"I  wrote  to  you  when  I  was  at  Ballymartin, "  he  said, 


514  CHAxNGING  WINDS 

"but  I  did  not  post  the  letter.  I  brought  it  with  me.  I 
meant  to  destroy  it  because  I  thought  it  was  too  emotional, 
and  then  I  thought  that  perhaps  I  had  better  let  you  see  it 
so  that  you  might  judge  me,  not  just  as  I  am  now,  talking 
to  you  quietly  like  this,  but  as  I  was  when  I  wrote  it ! " 

He  took  the  letter  from  his  pocket  and  gave  it  to  her. 

"I  had  to  tell  you,  Mary.  I  couldn't  marry  you  without 
letting  you  know  what  kind  of  man  I  am.  I'm  too 
frightened  to  go  to  the  Front.  At  the  bottom  of  all  my 
excuses,  that's  the  truth." 

She  did  not  speak,  but  stood  with  his  letter  in  her  hands, 
turning  it  over.  .  .  . 

"I've  tried  to  persuade  myself,"  he  went  on,  "that  I'm 
of  special  account,  that  I  ought  not  to  go  to  the  war,  but  I 
know  very  well  that  in  a  time  like  this,  no  one  is  of  special 
account.  Gilbert  said  something  like  that  at  Tre'Arrdur 
Bay  when  I  told  him  that  his  life  was  of  greater  value  than 
the  life  of  ...  of  a  clerk.  I  suppose,  the  finer  a  man  is, 
the  more  willing  he  is  to  take  his  share  in  war,  and  if 
that's  true,  I'm  not  really  a  fine  man.  I'm  simply  a  cow- 
ard, hoarding  up  my  life  in  a  cupboard,  like  a  miser  hoard- 
ing up  his  money.  I  should  have  been  the  first  to  spend 
myself  .  .  .  like  Gilbert  and  Ninian.  I'm  the  only  one  of 
the  Improved  Tories  who  hasn't  gone!  .  .  .  Oh,  I  couldn't 
offer  you  myself,  dear.  I'm  too  mean  ...  I'm  a  failure 
in  fineness.  ...  I  used  to  feel  contempt  for  Jimphy  Jayne 
.  .  .  but  he  didn't  hesitate  for  a  moment.  It  never  entered 
his  head  not  to  go.  The  moment  the  war  began,  Gilbert 
enlisted,  and  I  suppose  Ninian  must  have  left  that  railway 
the  very  minute  he  heard  the  news.  I  was  never  quite  .  .  . 
never  quite  on  their  level,  Mary,  and  I  don't  suppose  I  ever 
shall  be  now!" 

She  moved  slightly,  as  if  she  were  tired  of  remaining 
in  one  position,  and  were  shifting  to  an  easier  one,  but  still 
she  did  not  speak,  nor  did  she  raise  her  eyes  to  look  at  him. 

"I'm  not  fit  to  be  your  husband,"  he  said.  "I'm  not 
fit  to  be  any  woman's  husband,  but  much  less  yours.     Even 


CHANGING  WINDS  515 

now,  when  I  'm  standing  here  talking  to  you  in  this  safety, 
the  thought  of  ...  of  being  out  there  makes  me  shiver 
with  fear.  It 's  the  thought  of  ...  of  dying !  .  .  .  I  think 
and  think  of  all  those  young  chaps,  all  the  fellows  I  knew, 
robbed  of  their  right  to  live  and  love,  as  I  love  you,  and 
work  and  make  their  end  in  decency  and  peace  .  .  .  and  I 
can't  bear  it.  I  want  to  save  myself  from  the  wreckage 
...  to  hide  myself  in  safety  until  this  .  .  .  this  horror  is 
ended!"  He  paused  for  a  while,  as  if  he  were  searching 
for  words  and  then  he  went  on.  "There  was  an  officer  in 
my  carriage  to-day  .  .  .  going  on  to  Whimple  .  .  .  and  he 
told  me  about  poison  gas  .  .  .  the  men  died  in  frightful 
agony,  he  said  .  .  .  and  then  he  talked  about  machine 
guns.  .  .  .  'They  can  perforate  a  man  like  a  postage 
stamp,'  he  said.  .  .  .  Isn't  it  vile,  JNIary?" 

Her  head  was  still  bent,  and  as  she  did  not  make  an 
answer  to  him,  he  turned  to  look  away  from  her.  He  re- 
membered how  Sheila  JNIorgan,  in  her  anger  at  his  cow- 
ardice, had  struck  him  in  the  face  and  had  furiously  bid- 
den him  to  leave  her.  .  ,  .  ]\Iary  would  not  strike  him,  but 
she,  too,  would  bid  him  to  go  from  her.  .  .  . 

He  felt  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Quinny!"  she  said  very  softly,  and  he  turned  to  find 
her  standing  nearer  to  him  and  looking  up  at  him  with  no 
less  love  than  she  had  looked  at  him  before  he  had  made  his 
confession  to  her. 

"I  don't  love  you,  Quinny,  only  for  what's  fine  in  you," 
she  said,  and  her  speech  was  full  of  hesitation  as  if  she 
could  not  adequately  express  her  meaning,  "I  love  you 
.  .  .  for  all  of  you.  I  just  take  the  bad  with  the  good,  and 
.  .  .  and  make  the  best  of  it,  dear ! ' ' 

"You  still  want  me,  Mary?  ..." 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  half  laughing  and  half  crying, 
"I've  always  wanted  you!  .  .  .  Oh,  what's  the  good,"  she 
went  on  with  an  impetuous  rush  of  words,  *  *  of  loving  a  man 
only  when  he  comes  up  to  your  expectations.  I  want  to 
love  you  even  when  you  don 't  come  up  to  my  expecta- 


516  CHANGING  WINDS 

tious,  Quinny,  and  I  do  love  you,  dear.  It  hasn't  anything 
to  do  with  whether  you're  brave  or  not  brave,  or  good  or 
bad,  or  great  or  common.  I  just  love  you  .  .  .  don't  you 
see?  .  .  .  because  you're  you!  ..." 

He  stared  at  her  incredulously.  He  had  been  so  certain 
that  she  would  bid  him  leave  her  when  she  learned  of  his 
cowardice. 

"But!  .  .  ." 

"Come  home,"  she  said.  "You  must  be  very  tired,  and 
cold!" 

She  put  her  arm  in  his,  and  drew  him  homewards,  and 
he  yielded  to  her  like  a  little  child. 

As  they  turned  the  corner  of  the  apple-orchard,  they 
could  see  lights  shining  from  the  windows  of  the  Manor, 
making  a  warm  splash  on  the  snow  that  lay  in  drifts  about 
the  garden.  There  was  a  great  quietness  that  was  broken 
now  and  then  by  the  twittering  of  birds  in  the  hedges  as 
they  nestled  for  the  night,  or  the  cries  made  by  the  screech- 
owls,  hooting  in  the  copse. 

8 

Mrs.  Graham  and  Kachel  had  left  them  alone  for  a 
while,  after  dinner,  and  as  he  sat,  with  her  at  his  feet, 
fondling  her  hair,  she  spoke  of  her  feeling  for  him  again. 

"I've  wondered  sometimes,"  she  said,  "about  your  not 
joining  ...  it  seemed  odd  .  .  .  but  I  thought  that  per- 
haps there  was  something  that  would  explain  it.  I'd  like 
you  to  join,  Quinny  ...  I  can't  pretend  that  I  wouldn't 
.  .  .  but  I  don't  feel  that  I  ought  to  ask  you  to  do  so.  If 
I  were  a  man  I  should  join,  I  think,  but  I'm  not  a  man, 
and  I'm  not  likely  to  have  to  suffer  any  of  the  things  that 
a  man  has  to  suffer  if  he  goes  .  .  .  and  so  I  don 't  say  any- 
thing. I  don't  know  why  I'd  like  you  to  go  ...  I  ought 
to  be  glad  that  you  haven't  gone  because  I  love  you  and 
I  don't  want  to  lose  you  .  .  .  but  all  the  same  I'd  like 
you  to  go.    It  isn't  just  because  other  men  have  gone,  and 


i 


CHANGING  WINDS  517 

I  don't  feel  any  desire  for  revenge  because  Ninian's  been 
killed  .  .  .  it's  just  because  England's  England,  I  sup- 
pose. ..."  She  laughed  a  little  nervously.  "I  can  hardly 
expect  you  to  feel  about  England  as  I  do.  You're 
Irish!  .  ." 

"I've  made  that  excuse  for  myself,  Mary.  Don't  you 
make  it  for  me.  I  know  inside  me  that  the  war  isn't 
England's  war  ...  it's  the  world's  war.  John  INIarsh  ad- 
mits that  much.  He  doesn't  like  English  rule  in  Ireland, 
but  he  doesn't  pretend  that  German  rule  would  be  better 
.  ,  .  not  seriously,  anyhow.  No,  dear,  I  haven't  that  ex- 
cuse. I  know  that  if  we  lose  this  war,  the  world  will  be 
a  worse  place  to  live  in  than  it  is.  I  haven't  any  con- 
scientious objection  ...  I  don't  feel  that  we  are  in  the 
wrong  ...  I  feel  that  we're  in  the  right  .  .  .  that  we 
never  were  so  right  as  we  are.  I'm  simply  anxious  to  save 
my  skin.  And  even  if  I  felt  that  John  j\Iarsh  were  right 
in  being  anti-English,  I  don't  feel  that  I  have  any  right 
to  take  up  that  attitude.  England's  done  no  wrong  to  my 
family.  .  .  .  You  see,  dear,  I  haven't  any  excuse  that's 
worth  while  .  .  .  except  the  wish  to  presei-ve  my  life  .  .  . 
and  that's  a  poor  excuse.  When  I  think  of  being  at  the 
Front,  I  think  of  myself  as  dead  .  .  .  lying  out  there  .  .  . 
without  any  of  the  decencies  .  .  .  until  I'm  offensive  to 
the  men  who  were  my  friends  .  .  .  until  they  sicken  at  the 
stench  oi  me!  .  .  ." 

"Don't,  dear!"  she  murmured. 

"Perhaps  I  shall  conquer  this  .  .  .  this  meanness.  I 
want  to  conquer  it.  I  want  to  behave  as  I  believe.  I  be- 
lieve that  there  are  things  one  should  be  glad  to  fight  for 
and  die  for  .  .  .  and  I  want  to  feel  glad  to  fight  for  them 
and  be  ready  to  die  for  them.  But  now  I  feel  most  that  I 
want  to  be  safe  ...  to  go  on  living  and  living  and  enjoy- 
ing things.  ..." 

"But  can  you  enjoy  things  if  they're  not  worth  dying 
for,  Quinny  ?  If  England  weren't  worthy  dying  for,  would 
it  be  worth  living  in !     That 's  how  I  feel ! ' ' 


5lg  CHANGING  WINDS 

"That's  how  I  think,  Mary,  but  it  isn't  how  I  feel. 
I  feel  that  I  want  to  be  safe  no  matter  what  happens  .  .  . 
if  civilisation  is  to  go  to  smash  and  we're  to  be  driven 
back  to  savagery,  distrusting  and  being  distrusted  ...  I 
feel  that  I  don't  care  .  .  .  that  I  want  to  be  safe,  to  go  on 
living,  even  if  I  have  to  live  in  a  cave  and  hide  from 
everything.  .  .  .  Oh,  my  dear,  don't  you  see  what  a  poor 
thing  I  am!" 

"Yes,"  she  said  cimply. 

"And  yet  you're  willing  to  marry  me?"  . 

"Yes,  I  can't  help  loving  you,  any  more  than  I  can 
help  loving  my  country.  I  can't  explain  it  and  I  don't 
want  to  explain  it.  If  I  were  a  man  and  England  were  in 
the  wrong,  I'd  fight  for  England  just  because  she's  Eng- 
land. Everything  makes  me  feel  like  that.  When  Ninian 
was  killed,  something  went  on  saying,  'You're  English! 
You  mustn't  cry!  You're  English!'  And  when  I  look  at 
the  trees  outside,  I  feel  that  they're  English,  too,  and  that 
they're  telling  me  I'm  English  .  .  .  that  somehow  they're 
special  trees,  different  from  the  trees  in  other  countries 
.  .  .  that  they  've  got  something  that  I  've  got,  and  that  I  've 
got  something  they've  got  .  .  .  something  that  a  French 
tree  or  a  German  tree  hasn't  got.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  know  it's  silly, 
but  I  can 't  help  it  .  .  .  and  when  I  used  to  walk  about  the 
lanes  and  fields  after  Ninian 's  death  ...  I  felt  that  the 
birds  and  the  grass  and  the  ferns  and  everything  were 
saying  'You're  English!'  and  I  wanted  to  say  back  to 
them,  'You're  English,  tbo!  .  .  .'  I  suppose  people  feel 
like  that  everywhere  .  .  .  those  friends  of  yours  in  Ireland 
must  feel  like  that  about  Ireland  .  .  .  and  Germans, 
too!  .  .  ." 

He  nodded  his  head.  "  It 's  a  madness,  this  nationality, ' ' 
he  said,  "but  you  can't  get  a  cure  for  it.    Even  I  feel  it!" 

"Quinny!" 

"Yes,  Mary!" 

There  was  a  nervous  note  in  her  voice.    She  got  up.  so 


CHANGING  WINDS  519 

that  she  was  on  her  knees,  and  fingered  the  lapels  of  his 
coat. 

' '  Quinny ! ' '  she  said  again,  and  he  waited  for  her  to  pro- 
ceed. "I  .  .  .  I  want  us  to  get  married  .  .  .  soon!  You'll 
probably  go  into  the  Army  .  .  .  nobody  could  go  on  feel- 
ing as  you  do,  and  not  go  in  .  .  .  and  I'd  like  us  to  .  .  . 
to  have  had  some  time  together  .  .  .  before  you  go.  I 
don't  want  to  be  married  to  you  just  .  .  .  just  a  day  or 
two  before  you  go.  I  ...  I  want  to  have  lived  with  you 
and  to  ...  to  have  taken  care  of  your  house  .  .  .  with 
you  in  it !  .  .  . " 

He  folded  her  in  his  arms. 

"You  will,  Quinny?"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered. 


THE  ELEVENTH  CHAPTER 


They  were  to  be  married  as  soon  as  Lent  was  over.  Mrs. 
Graham,  reluctant  to  lose  Mary,  had  pleaded  for  delay, 
urging  that  Ballymartin  was  so  far  from  Boveyhaven  that 
she  would  seldom  see  her.  "Two  days'  post,"  she  pro- 
tested. 

"But  you'll  come  and  stay  with  us,  mother,"  Mary  de- 
clared, "and  we'll  come  and  stay  with  you!" 

It  would  be  quite  easy  for  Henry  to  come  to  Devonshire, 
for  he  could  carry  his  work  about  with  him.  Then  Mrs. 
Graham  had  yielded  to  them,  and  it  was  settled  that  the 
marriage  was  to  take  place  at  the  beginning  of  May. 
Neither  Mary  nor  he  had  spoken  again  of  the  question  of 
enlistment.  She  had  said  all  that  was  in  her  mind  about  it, 
and  what  followed  was  for  him  to  decide. 

He  went  back  to  Ballymartin.  There  were  things  to  be 
done  at  home  in  preparation  for  the  coming  of  a  bride. 
The  house  had  not  known  a  mistress  since  his  mother's 
death,  and  his  father  had  been  too  preoccupied  with  his 
agricultural  experiments  to  bother  greatly  about  the  in- 
terior of  his  house.  So  long  as  he  could  find  things  more 
or  less  where  he  had  left  them,  Mr.  Quinn  had  been  con- 
tent. 

"You  won't  overhaul  it  too  much,  Quinny?"  Mary  said 
to  him,  "because  I'd  like  to  do  some  of  that!" 

He  had  promised  that  he  would  do  no  more  than  was 
immediately  necessary;  and  then  he  went. 

"I  shall  have  to  go  to  Dublin,"  he  had  told  her. 
"There'll  be  a  lot  of  stuff  to  settle  with  lawyers!"  Her 
settlement,  for  example.     "I'll  go  home  first,  then  on  to 

620 


CHANGING  WINDS  621 

Dublin,  and  then  back  here.     I  shall  get  to  Boveyhayne 
just  after  Easter!" 


Mr.  Quinn  had  not  greatly  bothered  about  the  interior 
of  the  house,  but  Hannah  had,  and  although  there  were 
things  that  needed  to  be  done,  there  was  less  than  he  had 
imagined. 

"  I  'm  going  to  be  married,  Hannah ! "  he  said  to  her  soon 
after  he  had  arrived  home. 

'  *  Are  you,  now  ? ' '  she  exclaimed. 

"Yes.    You  remember  Mr.  Graham?  ..." 

"Ay,  poor  sowl,  I  mind  him  .  .  .  the  nice-spoken,  well- 
behaved  lad  he  was!  ..." 

'  *  Well,  I  'm  going  to  marry  his  sister ! '  * 

"It'll  be  quaren  nice  to  think  o'  this  house  havin'  a 
mistress  in  it  again,  an'  wee  weans,  mebbe.  I  was  here, 
a  young  girl,  when  your  father  brought  your  mother  home 
...  I  mind  it  well  .  .  .  she  was  a  quiet  woman,  an'  she 
stud  in  the  hall  there  as  nervous  as  a  child  'til  I  went  forrit 
to  her,  an'  said,  'Ye 're  right  an'  welcome,  ma'am!',  an' 
then  she  plucked  up  her  heart,  an'  she  give  me  a  wee  bit 
of  a  smile,  an '  said  '  Thank  ye,  Hannah ! '  for  your  father 
told  her  who  I  was.  An'  she  used  to  come  an'  talk  to  me 
afore  you  were  born  .  .  .  she  was  terrible  frightened,  poor 
woman.  Ay,  she  was  terrible  frightened  of  havin'  you! 
Your  father  couldn't  make  her  out  at  all.  It  was  a  quare 
pity!" 

He  let  her  ramble  on,  for  he  wanted  now  to  hear  about 
his  mother,  of  whom  he  knew  so  little.  There  was  a  por- 
trait of  her  in  the  house,  a  fair,  slight,  timid-looking 
woman  who  seemed  to  be  shrinking  out  of  the  frame.  It 
was  odd  to  think  that  she  was  his  mother,  this  frightened 
woman  of  whom  he  had  no  memory  whatever,  for  whom  he 
had  no  tender  feeling.  He  had  loved  his  father  deeply, 
but  he  had  no  love  for  his  mother.    How  could  he  feel  love 


62a  CHANGING  WINDS 

for  her?  He  had  never  known  her!  .  .  .  But  now  he 
wanted  to  know  all  that  Hannah  knew  about  her,  for  Han- 
nah perhaps  had  known  more  about  her  than  any  one. 
Hannah  had  cared  for  her,  pitied  her.  .  .  . 

"Yes,  Hannah!"  he  said,  so  that  she  might  proceed. 

"She  was  sure  she  was  goin'  to  die,  an'  I  had  the  quare 
work  to  keep  her  quiet.  An'  she  was  terrible  feard  of 
dyin'!" 

He  listened  to  her  with  a  strange  feeling  of  pain.  All 
that  he  had  endured  at  the  thought  of  fighting  had  been 
endured  by  his  mother  at  the  thought  of  giving  him  birth. 
He  felt  that  now,  at  last,  he  knew  his  mother  and  could 
sympathise  with  her  and  love  her. 

"But  sure  what  was  the  sense  of  bein'  afeard  of  that," 
Hannah  went  on.  "God  wouldn't  be  hard  on  the  like  of 
her,  the  poor,  innocent  woman.  I  toul'  lies  til  her,  God 
forgive  me,  an'  let  on  to  her  that  people  made  out  that  it 
was  worse  nor  it  was  to  have  a  child  .  .  .  but  she  had  a 
despert  bad  time  of  it,  for  she  was  a  weak  woman,  with 
no  body  in  her  at  all,  an'  a  poor  will  to  suffer  things. 
She  never  was  the  better  of  you!"  She  smiled  at  him 
sadly.  "Never!  An'  she  took  no  interest  in  nothin'  after 
that  .  .  .  she  could  hardly  bear  to  look  at  you  ...  an' 
you  her  own  wee  son.  She  didn  't  live  long  after  you  come, 
an'  mebbe  it  was  as  well,  for  God  never  made  her  to  con- 
tend with  anything.  I  was  quaren  fond  of  her.  Ye  had  to 
like  her,  she  was  that  helpless.  She  couldn't  thole  any  one 
next  or  near  her  but  myself  .  .  .  and  so  I  got  fond  of  her, 
for  a  body  has  to  like  people  that  depends  on  them.  Will 
your  wife  be  a  fair  lady  or  a  dark  lady,  Master  Henry?" 

He  realised  that  she  wished  him  to  describe  Mary  to 
her. 

"She's  dark,"  he  said.    "Not  at  all  like  her  brother!" 

"Ay,  he  was  the  big,  fair  man  that  was  a  credit  to  a 
woman  to  have!" 

"I  have  her  photograph  upstairs,"  Henry  went  on,  "I'll 
go  and  get  it.    You'd  like  to  see  it,  wouldn't  you?" 


CHANGING  WINDS  623 

"Deed  an'  I  would,"  she  answered. 

He  got  the  photograph  and  gave  it  to  her,  and  she  took 
it  in  her  hands  and  looked  at  it  very  steadily. 

"She's  a  comely-lookin'  girl,"  she  said,  handing  it  to 
him  again.  * '  She  has  sweet  eyes  an '  a  proud  way  of  holdin ' 
her  head.  She  shud  be  a  good  wife  to  you.  I  '11  be  glad  to 
see  her  here,  for  dear  knows,  it's  lonesome  sittin'  in  the 
house  with  no  one  to  look  after.  I  miss  your  da  sore, 
Master  Henry,  an'  it's  seldom  you're  here  now!" 

"  I  '11  be  here  much  more  in  future,  Hannah ! ' ' 

"Well,  thank  God  for  that !  I  like  well  to  see  the  quality 
in  their  houses,  an'  them  not  to  be  runnin'  here  an'  runnin' 
there,  an*  not  thinkin'  of  their  own  place  an'  their  own 
people.  An'  I  pray  to  God  you'll  have  fine  childher,  an' 
I'll  be  well-spared  to  see  them  growin'  up  to  be  a  credit 
to  you!" 

The  old  woman's  patient  service  and  love  seemed  very 
noble  to  him,  and  he  went  to  her  and  took  her  hand. 
"You're  the  only  mother  I've  ever  known,  Hannah!"  he 
said.     "You've  always  been  very  good  to  me!" 

"An'  why  wouldn't  I  be  good  to  you?"  she  exclaimed, 
raising  her  fine  blue  eyes  to  his.  "Aren't  you  the  only 
child  I  ever  had  to  rear?  Dear  bless  you,  son,  what  else 
would  I  be  but  good  to  you?" 

And  suddenly  she  put  her  arms  about  him  and  kissed  him 
passionately,  and  as  she  kissed  him,  she  cried : 

"God  only  knows  what  I'm  girnin*  for!"  she  exclaimed, 
releasing  him  and  drying  her  eyes. 


He  wandered  about  the  house,  touching  a  chair  or  finger- 
ing a  curtain  or  looking  at  a  portrait,  and  wondered  how 
Mary  would  like  her  new  home.  It  was  not  an  old  house, 
nor  had  the  Quinns  lived  in  it  from  the  time  it  was  built, 
and  so  Henry  could  not  feel  about  it  what  Ninian  must  have 
felt  about  Boveyhayne  Manor,  in  which  his  ancestors  had 


5U  CHANGING  WINDS 

lived  for  four  centuries.  But  it  was  his  home,  in  .which  he 
had  been  born,  in  which  his  mother  and  father  had  died,  and 
it  seemed  to  him  to  be  as  full  of  memories  and  tradition 
as  Mary's  home.  The  war  had  broken  the  line  of  Grahams, 
broken  a  tradition  that  had  survived  the  dangers  of  four 
hundred  years.  That  seemed  to  Henry  to  be  a  pity.  Per- 
haps, he  thought,  this  worship  of  Family  is  a  foolish  thing. 
There  was  a  danger  in  being  rooted  to  one  place,  in  letting 
your  blood  become  too  closely  mingled,  and  a  tradition 
might  very  well  become  a  substitute  for  life ;  but  when  all 
that  was  said  and  admitted,  there  was  a  pride  in  one's 
breeding  that  made  life  seem  like  a  sacrament,  and  the 
years  but  the  rungs  of  a  long  ladder.  Once,  in  the  days  of 
the  Bloomsbury  house,  they  had  talked  of  tradition,  and 
some  one  had  related  the  old  story  of  the  American  tourist 
who  was  shown  the  sacred  light,  and  told  that  it  had  not 
been  out  for  hundreds  of  years.  "Well,  I  guess  it's  out 
now!"  the  American  replied,  blowing  the  light  out.  They 
had  made  a  mock  of  the  horrified  priest  and  had  protested 
that  his  service  to  the  flame  was  a  waste  of  life  and  energy 
and  time.  And  when  they  had  said  all  that  they  had  to 
say,  Ninian,  speaking  more  quietly  than  was  his  wont,  had 
interjected,  * '  But  don 't  you  think  the  American  was  rather 
a  cad?" 

They  had  argued  fiercely  then,  some  of  them  protesting 
that  the  American's  disregard  of  a  worn  convention  was 
splendid,  virile,  youthful,  god-like.  Roger,  Henry  remem- 
bered, had  sided  with  Ninian  so  far  as  to  admit  that  the 
American's  behaviour  had  been  too  inconsiderate.  "He 
might  have  discussed  the  matter  with  the  priest  .  .  .  tried 
to  persuade  him  to  blow  it  out  himself!"  but  that  was  as 
far  as  he  would  go  with  Ninian. 

"I  admit,"  Ninian  had  retorted,  "that  it  was  a  foolish 
tradition  .  .  .  but  don't  you  think  the  American  was 
rather  a  cad.  It  was  better,  wasn't  it,  to  have  that  tradi- 
tion than  to  have  none  at  all?" 

Now,  standing  here,  in  this  house  that  had  been  his 


CHANGING  WINDS  5^6 

father's,  and  now  was  his,  and  would,  in  due  time,  be  his 
son's,  if  ever  he  should  have  a  son,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
Ninian  had  been  right  in  his  contention.  And  just  as 
Mary,  moving  through  the  Devonshire  lanes,  had  felt  that 
everything  proclaimed  its  Englishness  and  hers,  making 
them  and  her  part  of  each  other,  so  he,  looking  out  of  the 
window  across  the  fields,  felt  something  inside  him  insist- 
ing, ''You're  Irish.  You  must  be  proud!  You're  Irish! 
You  must  be  proud !  .  .  . " 

He  remembered  very  vividly  how  his  father  had  led  him 
to  this  very  window  once  and,  pointing  towards  the  fields, 
had  said,  "That's  land,  Henry!    My  land!  ..." 

And  because  he  had  been  proud  of  his  land,  had  been 
part  of  it,  as  it  had  been  part  of  him,  he  had  been  willing 
to  spend  himself  on  it.  There  seemed  to  Henry  to  be  in 
that,  all  that  there  was  in  patriotism.  Irrationally,  im- 
pulsively, unaccountably  one  loved  one's  country.  The  air 
of  it  and  the  earth  of  it,  the  winds  that  blew  over  it  and 
the  seas  that  encircled  it,  all  these  had  been  mingled  to 
make  men,  so  that  when  there  was  danger  and  threat  to  a 
man's  country,  some  native  thing  in  him  stirred  and  com- 
pelled him  to  say,  "This  is  my  body!  This  is  my  blood!" 
and  sent  him  out,  irrationally,  impulsively,  unaccountably, 
to  die  in  its  defence.  There  was  here  no  question  of  birth 
or  possessions :  the  slum-man  felt  this  stirring  in  his  nature 
as  strongly  as  the  landlord.  In  that  sudden,  swift  rising 
of  young  men  when  war  was  declared,  each  man  instinct- 
ively hurrying  to  the  place  of  enlistment,  there  were  men 
from  slums  and  men  from  mansions,  all  of  them,  in  an  in- 
stant, made  corporate,  given  unity,  brought  to  communion, 
partaking  of  a  sacrament,  becoming  at  that  moment  a  sacra- 
ment themselves.  .  .  . 


4 

But  if  this  stirring  in  one's  nature  made  a  man  both  a 
sacrament  and  a  partaker  of  a  sacrament,  was  there  not  yet 


5^6  CHANGING  WINDS 

something  horrible  in  this  spilling  of  blood,  this  breaking 
of  bodies?  Was  this  sacrament  only  to  be  consummated 
by  the  butcher?  Was  there  no  healing  sacrament  which, 
when  a  man  partook  of  it,  gave  him  life  and  more  life? 
Was  there  not  an  honourable  rivalry  among  nations,  each 
to  be  better  than  the  other,  to  replace  this  brawling  about 
boundaries,  this  pettifogging  with  frontiers?  Was  there 
to  be  no  end  to  this  killing  and  preparing  for  killing? 
Would  men,  from  now  on,  set  themselves  to  the  devisal  of 
murderous  and  more  murderous  weapons  of  war  until  at 
last  an  indignant,  disgusted  God,  sick  of  the  smell  of 
blood,  threw  the  earth  from  Him,  caring  nothing  what  hap- 
pened to  it,  so  that  it  was  out  of  His  consciousness  ?  .  .  . 

While  he  looked  out  of  the  window,  the  dusk  settled 
down,  and  he  could  see  the  mists  rising  from  the  fields. 
He  drew  the  curtains,  and  went  and  sat  down  by  the  fire. 
There  was  a  faint  odour  of  burning  turf  in  the  room,  and 
as  he  watched  the  blue  spirals  of  smoke  curling  up  the 
chimney,  he  remembered  how  he  had  trudged  across  Dart- 
moor once,  and,  suddenly,  unexpectedly  had  turned  a  cor- 
ner of  the  road,  and  looked  down  on  a  village  in  a  hollow, 
and  for  a  moment  or  two  had  imagined  he  was  in  Ireland 
because  of  the  smell  of  burning  turf  that  came  from  th'' 
cottage  chimneys. 

"We  and  they  are  one,"  he  murmured  to  himself.  "On); 
differences  are  but  two  aspects  of  the  same  thing.  Oui' 
blood  and  their  blood,  our  earth  and  their  earth,  mingled 
and  made  sacramental,  shall  be  to  the  glory  of  God!" 

The  door  opened,  and  Hannah  came  in,  carrying  a  lighted 
lamp. 

"I  just  thought  I'd  bring  it  myself,"  she  said.  ''I'd 
be  afeard  of  my  life  to  let  Minnie  handle  it.  Dear  know?, 
but  she'd  set  herself  on  fire,  or  mebbe  the  house,  an'  that'c^ 
be  a  nice  thing,  an'  a  new  mistress  comin'  to  it.  Will  7 
put  it  down  here  by  your  elbow?" 

"Anywhere,  Hannah!"  he  answered. 

"I'll  just  rest  it  here  then,  where  it'll  not  be  too  strong 


CHANGING  WINDS  627 

for  your  eyes.  You  ought  to  have  the  electric  light  put 
in  the  house.  Major  Cairnduff  has  it  in  his  house,  an'  it's 
not  half  the  size  of  this  one.  .  .  .  "Will  I  get  you  some- 
thing?" 

"No,  thank  you,  Hannah!" 

"A  taste  of  somethin'  to  ate,  mebbe,  or  a  sup  to  drink!" 

"Nothing,  thank  you!" 

She  went  over  to  the  fire.  "Dear  bless  us,"  she  said, 
"that's  no  sort  of  a  fire  at  all.  What  come  over  you,  to  let 
it  get  that  low!" 

"I  didn't  notice  it,  Hannah!" 

"  'Deed  an'  I  don't  suppose  you  did  .  ,  .  moidherin* 
your  mind  about  one  thing  an'  another!  There'll  be  a  dif- 
ferent story  to  tell  when  the  mistress  comes  home,  Mark 
my  words,  there  will!    Dear,  oh,  dear,  oh,  dear!  ..." 


"I'm  going  to  Belfast  to-night,  Hannah,"  he  said  when 
he  had  been  at  home  a  few  weeks.    "I  want  to  catch  an 
early  train  to  Dublin  to-morrow." 
"Yes,"  she  said. 

* '  When  I  come  back,  I  shall  bring  my  wife  with  me ! " 
"God  bless  us  and  save  us,"  she  exclaimed,  "it'll  be 
quare  to  think  of  you  with  a  wife,  an'  it  on'y  the  other  day 
since  you  were  a  child,  an'  me  skelpin'  you  for  provokin' 
me.  Well,  I'll  have  the  house  ready  for  yous  both  when 
you  come!" 

"Will  you  tell  Matier  to  harness  the  horse.  ..." 
"I'll  tell  him  this  minute.  That  man's  near  demented 
mad  at  the  thought  of  you  marryin '.  '  Be  the  hokey  0 ! ' 
he  says  whenever  I  go  anear  him,  an'  then  he  starts  laughin* 
an'  tellin'  me  it's  the  great  news  altogether.  *I  wish,'  says 
he,  'the  oul'  lad  was  alive.  He'd  be  makin'  hell's  blazes 
for  joy!'  Och,  he's  cracked,  that  fella.  I  tell  him  many 's 
the  time  it's  in  the  asylum  he  should  be,  but  sure,  you 
might  as  well  talk  to  the  potstick  as  talk  to  him.    He  '11 


528  CHANGING  WINDS 

drive  you  to  the  station  with  a  heart  an*  a  han',  and  the 
capers  of  him  when  you  both  come  back '11  be  like  nothin' 
on  God's  earth!" 

"So  long  as  he  doesn't  capsize  us  both  into  the 
ditch!  .  .  ." 

"Him  capsize  you!  I'd  warm  his  lug  for  him  if  he 
dar'd  to  do  such  a  thing!  ..." 


THE  TWELFTH  CHAPTER 

1 

He  had  been  to  the  offices  of  Messrs.  Kilworth  and  Kil- 
worth  in  Kildare  Street,  and  had  seen  Sir  John  Kilworth 
and  settled  as  much  of  his  business  as  could  then  be  done. 
Now,  wondering  just  what  he  should  do  next,  he  made  his 
way  to  Stephen's  Green  and  entered  the  Park,  and  while 
he  was  standing  on  the  bridge  over  the  lake,  looking  at  the 
dark  fish  in  the  water,  he  felt  a  hand  on  his  shoulder,  and 
turning  round,  saw  John  Marsh. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  in  Dublin,"  John  said,  holding 
out  his  hand, 

"I  haven't  been  here  very  long,"  Henry  answered,  "and 
I'm  going  away  again  after  Easter.  I'm  going  to  be  mar- 
ried." 

''Married!" 

"Yes  ...  to  Ninian  Graham's  sister.  I've  often 
talked  of  you  to  her.  You  must  come  and  stay  with  us 
when  we  get  back  to  Ballymartin." 

"Yes.  Yes,  I  should  like  to!  I  hope  you'll  be  happy, 
Henry!"  He  spoke  in  a  nervous,  agitated  way  that  was 
not  habitual  with  him,  and  Henry,  looking  more  closely 
at  hira,  saw  that  he  M^as  tired  and  ill-looking. 

"Aren't  you  well,  John?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  yes.  Yes,  I'm  quite  well.  I'm  rather  tired,  that's 
all.    I  've  been  working  very  hard ! ' ' 

"Still  drilling?" 

"Yes  .  .  .  still  drilling!" 

"What  are  you  doing  at  Easter,  John?"  Henry  asked. 

Marsh  looked  at  him  quickly,  almost  in  a  startled  fashion. 

529 


630  CHANGING  WINDS 

"At  Easter!"  he  repeated.    "Oh  .  .  .  nothing!    Whyt" 

"You  and  I  might  go  for  a  long  walk  through  the  moun- 
tains," Henry  answered.  "We  could  walk  to  Glendalough 
and  back  again.  It  would  just  fill  up  the  Easter  holidays. 
Let's  start  to-morrow  morning.  I'm  staying  at  the  Club. 
You  can  meet  me  there!" 

*  *  No,  I  'm  sorry,  Henry,  I  can 't  go  with  you !  .  .  . " 

"Why  not?    You  said  you'd  nothing  particular  to  do!" 

"I'm  going  to  Mass  in  the  morning.  ..." 

"Well,  that  doesn't  matter.  We  can  start  after  you've 
been.  Come  along,  John.  You  look  washed-out,  and  the 
tramp '11  do  you  good!  ..." 

Marsh  shook  his  head.  "I  can't  go,  Henry,"  he  said. 
"It  isn't  only  to-morrow  morning  that  I  want  to  go  to 
Mass  ...  I  want  to  go  the  day  after  .  .  .  and  I  want  to  go 
with  all  .  .  .  all  my  people  on  Easter  Sunday!" 

"You've  grown  very  religious,  John.  Do  you  go  to 
Mass  every  morning?" 

"I've  been  every  morning  now  for  a  month.  You  see, 
one  doesn't  know  .  .  .  well,  perhaps  I  am  growing  more 
religious.  I  won't  keep  you  now.  Perhaps  I  shall  see  you 
again!  .  .  ." 

"Why,  of  course,  you'll  see  me  again.  Heaven  and 
earth,  man,  anybody  'd  think  you  were  going  to  die,  the  way 
you  talk!" 

Marsh  did  not  speak.  He  smiled  when  Henry  spoke  of 
dying,  and  then  looked  away.  They  were  still  standing 
on  the  bridge,  and  he  leant  on  the  parapet  and  looked  down 
on  the  lake. 

"Queer  things,  fish!"  he  said. 

"Not  nearly  so  queer  as  you  are,"  Henry  answered. 
"Why  won't  you  come  with  me?  You  won't  want  to  be 
cooped  up  in  Dublin  all  Easter,  do  you?" 

"Cooped  up!" 

"Yes.  Two  or  three  days  of  mountain  air  'ud  do  you 
a  world  of  good.    You'd  better  come  with  me !" 

"No,  I  can't,"  he  answered  so  abruptly  that  Henry  did 


CHANGING  WINDS  581 

not  press  the  matter  again.  "When  are  you  going  to  be 
married,  Henry  ? "  he  asked,  speaking  in  his  old,  kindly  tone 
again. 

"At  the  beginning  of  May  .  .  .  less  than  a  fortnight 
now ! ' ' 

Marsh  turned  away  from  the  water,  and  stood  with  his 
back  to  the  parapet.  "Why  don't  you  spend  Easter  with 
your  fiancee?"  he  said. 

"That  isn't  quite  possible,  John.  I  should  only  be  in  the 
way,  if  I  were  there  now ! ' ' 

"Or  at  Ballymartin.  It  would  be  rather  nice  to  spend 
Easter  at  Ballymartin!" 

"Well,  I  will,  if  you'll  come  with  me.  ..." 

"I  can't  do  that.  I  don't  think  I  should  stay  in  Dublin 
at  Easter  if  I  were  you.  ..." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  it'll  be  dull  for  you.  People  go  away.  There's 
not  much  to  do.  I  should  go  to  the  North  or  over  to  Eng- 
land or  somewhere  if  I  were  you!" 

Henry  felt  resentful.  * '  You  seem  damned  anxious  to  get 
rid  of  me,  John,"  he  said.  "You  wpn't  come  into  the 
mountains  with  me,  and  you  keep  on  telling  me  to  clear 
out  of  Dublin!" 

Marsh  turned  to  him  quickly,  and  put  his  hand  on  his 
arm. 

"My  dear  Henry,"  he  said,  very  gently,  "you  know  that 
I  don't  feel  like  that.  I  thought  you'd  be  ...  I  thought 
you'd  have  a  happier  Easter  out  of  Dublin,  that  was  all. 
That  place  in  Wales,  where  you  went  with  poor  Far- 
low.  .  .  ." 

"Tre'Arrdur  Bay?" 

"Yes.  Why  don't  you  go  there?  It  really  isn't  much 
further  than  Glendalough." 

"You  can't  walk  to  it,  John,  and  you  can  walk  to  Glen- 
dalough!" 

"Oh,  well,  if  you  won't  go  .  .  .  you  won 't  go,  and  there 's 
an  end  of  it.    Good-bye!" 


632  CHANGING  WINDS 

"Wait  a  bit.     Come  and  dine  with  me  to-night!" 

"I  can't,  Henry!"  Henry  made  an  angry  gesture. 
** Don't  be  hurt,"  Marsh  went  on  quickly.  *'I  have  things 
to  attend  to.  You  see,  I  didn't  know  you  were  here.  I'm 
on  my  way  now  to  a  ...  a  committee  meeting.  I'll  come 
and  see  you  to-morrow,  if  I  can  manage  it.  I  '11  lunch  with 
you  somewhere!" 

"All  right.  I'll  meet  you  here  at  one,  and  we'll  lunch  at 
the  Shelbourne.  By  the  way,  John,  aren't  there  some  races 
on  Monday?" 

"Yes  ...  at  Fairyhouse!" 

* '  Well,  couldn  't  we  go  to  them  ?  I  've  never  seen  a  horse- 
race in  my  life!  ..." 

"I  don't  think  I  can  manage  that,  Henry!  ..." 

"Oh,  damn  you,  you  can't  manage  anything.  Well,  all 
right,  I'll  see  you  to-morrow!" 

"Good-bye,  then!  ..." 

He  went  off,  leaving  Henry  on  the  bridge  staring  after 
him,  and  as  he  went  towards  the  Grafton  Street  gate,  there 
was  something  slightly  incongruous  about  his  look. 

"I  know  what  it  is,"  Henry  said  to  himself.  "His 
coat's  too  big  for  him.  He  always  did  wear  things  that 
didn't  fit  him!" 


Marsh  did  not  keep  the  appointment.  Soon  after  one 
o'clock,  a  boy  came  to  Henry,  and  asked  him  if  he  were 
Mr.  Quinn,  and  when  Henry  had  assured  him  that  he  was, 
he  said,  "Mr.  Marsh  bid  me  to  tell  you,  sir,  that  he's  not 
able  to  come.  He  says  he's  very  sorry,  but  he  can't  help 
it!" 

The  lad  repeated  the  message  almost  as  if  he  had  learned 
it  by  heart.  ' '  Oh,  very  well ! ' '  Henry  said,  offering  money 
to  him." 

"Ah,  sure,  that's  all  right,  sir!"  the  lad  said,  and  then 
he  went  away. 


CHANGING  WINDS  688 

"I  suppose,"  Henry  said  to  himself  angrily,  **he's  at 
his  damned  drilling  again!" 

He  lunched  alone,  and  then  took  the  tram  to  Kingstown, 
and  walked  from  there  to  Bray  along  the  coast.  He  felt 
dispirited  and  lonely.  Jordan  and  Saxon  were  out  of  Dub- 
lin ..  .  Jordan  was  in  Sligo,  he  had  heard,  and  Saxon 
was  staying  with  his  uncle  near  the  mountains.  He  knew 
that  Crews  lived  in  Bray,  but  he  had  forgotten  the  address. 
"Perhaps,"  he  thought,  "I  shall  see  him  in  the  street.  ..." 

"Lordy  God!"  he  exclaimed,  "I'd  give  the  world  for 
some  one  to  talk  to.  John  Marsh  might  have  tried  to  meet 
me.  Fooling  about  with  his  .  .  .  penny-farthing  volun- 
teers!" 

"In  a  little  while,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  descended 
into  Killiney  and  walked  along  the  road  by  the  railway 
station,  "I  shall  be  married  to  Mary,  and  then!  ..." 

He  remembered  what  she  had  said  to  him  at  Boveyhayne, 
"I'd  like  you  to  go,  Quinny  ...  I  can't  pretend  that  I 
wouldn't.  ..." 

He  stood  for  a  while,  leaning  against  the  wall  and  look- 
ing out  over  the  crumpled  sea.  "I  don't  know,"  he  said 
to  himself,  "I  don't  know!" 


He  climbed  to  the  top  of  Bray  Head,  and  while  he  stood 
there,  his  mind  was  full  of  thoughts  that  beat  backwards 
and  forwards.  In  olden  times,  the  histories  said,  Ireland 
had  sent  a  stream  of  scholars  over  the  waste  places  of 
Europe  to  fertilise  them  and  make  them  fruitful.  "Now," 
he  thought  bitterly,  "we  send  'bosses'  to  Tammany 
Hall.  ..." 

He  tried  to  envisage  the  means  whereby  Ireland  would 
be  brought  to  the  measure  and  the  stature  of  a  dignified 
and  honourable  nation  .  .  .  "not  this  brawling,  whining, 
cadging,  snivelling,  Oh-Jesus-have-mercy-on-us  disorder!" 


634  CHANGING  WINDS 

and  he  saw  only  a  long,  tedious,  painful  process  of  self-re- 
generation.   "We  must  rise  on  our  own  wings!" 

"But  first  we  must  be  free,  free  from  the  bondage  of 
history,  free  from  the  bondage  of  romance,  free  from  the 
bondage  of  politics,  free  from  the  bondage  of  religion,  and 
free  from  the  bondage  of  our  bellies ! ' ' 

' '  There  are  four  Irishmen  to  be  conquered  and  controlled : 
the  Publican,  the  Priest,  the  Politician  and  the  Poet.  ..." 

"We  cannot  be  friendly  with  England  until  we  are  equal 
with  England  .  .  .  but  England  cannot  make  us  equal  with 
her  ...  we  can  only  do  that  ourselves ! ' ' 

"England  is  our  sister  .  .  .  not  our  mother!  ..." 

"Catholicism  is  Death  .  .  .  and  Intolerance  is  Death. 
Wherever  there  is  Catholicism  there  is  Decay  that  will  not 
be  stopped  until  the  people  protest.  Wherever  there  is  In- 
tolerance there  is  a  waste  of  life,  a  perversion  of  energy. 
When  the  Protestant  ceases,  and  the  Catholic  begins,  to 
shout  'To  Hell  with  the  Pope,'  there  will  be  glory  and  life 
in  Ireland.  ..." 

He  tried  to  plan  a  means  of  making  a  change  of  mind  in 
Ireland.  "We  must  make  opinions  and  active  brains!" 
and  so  he  saw  himself  urging  his  friends  to  abandon  par- 
liaments to  the  middle-aged  and  the  second-rate,  while  they 
bent  their  minds  to  the  conquest  of  the  schools.  "Let  the 
old  men  make  their  speeches,"  he  said  aloud  as  if  he  were 
addressing  a  conference.  "We'll  mould  the  minds  of  the 
children!" 

They  must  exult  in  service.  "I  believe  in  Work  .  .  . 
in  the  Job  Well  Done  ...  in  giving  oneself  without  ceas- 
ing ...  in  the  holy  communion  of  men  labouring  together 
for  something  which  is  greater  than  themselves  ...  in 
spending  oneself  with  no  reward  but  to  know  that  one  is 
spent  well!  ..." 

They  would  enlist  the  young  men  of  generous  mind. 
They  would  open  their  minds  to  the  knowledge  of  the  wide 
world,  and  would  pity  the  man  who  was  content  only  to  be 
an  islander ;  and  they  would  give  the  harvest  of  their  minds 


CHANGING  WINDS  636 

to  their  juniors,  so  that  they,  when  they  grew  to  manhood, 
might  find  greater  ease  in  working  for  the  common  good. 
They  would  demand,  not  privileges,  but  responsibilities. 
"If  we  cannot  make  decisions,  even  when  we  decide 
wrongly,  then  we  are  not  men ! ' ' 

"We  must  kill  the  Publican,  we  must  subdue  the  Priest, 
we  must  humiliate  the  Politician,  and  chasten  the 
Poet.  .  .  ." 

* '  In  all  our  ways,  0  God,  let  us  guide  ourselves !  .  ,  . " 
It  seemed  to  him  that  God  was  not  a  Being  who  miracu- 
lously made  the  world,  but  a  Being  who  laboured  at  it, 
suffered  and  failed,  and  rose  again  and  achieved.  .  .  .  He 
could  hear  God,  stumbling  through  the  Universe,  full  of 
the  agony  of  desire,  calling  continually,  "Let  there  be 
Light!    Let  there  be  Light!  ..." 


He  looked  about  him.  Behind  him,  lay  the  long  broken 
line  of  the  Wicklow  mountains,  with  the  Sugar  Loaf  thrust- 
ing its  pointed  head  into  the  heavens.  There  in  front  of 
him,  heaving  and  tumbling,  was  the  sea :  a  miracle  of  heal- 
ing and  cleansing.  It  would  be  good,  he  thought,  to  spend 
one's  life  in  the  sound  of  the  sea,  taking  no  care  for  the 
lives  of  other  men,  content  that  oneself  was  fed  and  com- 
fortable. ' '  But  that  would  not  be  enough.  There  must  be 
Light  and  IMore  Light!" 

"God,"  he  said,  "has  many  forms.  In  that  place,  he  is 
a  Quietness  ...  in  this  place,  a  Discontent  ...  in  a  third 
place,  a  Quest." 

"But  here,  God  is  a  Demand.  *Let  there  be  Light !  Let 
there  be  more  Light ! '  " 


He  went  home  and  wrote  to  Mary.    ''My  impulse  is  to 
tell  you  no  more  than  this,  that  I  love  you.    I  wrote  to  you 


636  CHANGING  WINDS 

this  morning,  and  I  have  nothing  to  add  that  is  news.  But 
I  feel  an  overpowering  desire  to  insist  on  my  love  for  you 
.  .  .  to  do  nothing  for  ever  hut  love  you  and  love  you.  .  .  . 
You  see  the  mood  I'm  in!  I  went  out  of  Dublin  to-day, 
sulking  and  depressed  because  John  Marsh  had  failed  me 
and  I  was  lonely,  hut  now  I'm  extraordinarily  happy.  I 
feel  that  I  have  only  to  stretch  out  my  hand  and  touch  you 
.  .  .  and  then  I  shall  he  depressed  no  more.  This  is  not  a 
letter.  It  has  no  beginning  and  it  will  have  no  end.  It's 
an  outpouring.  To-night  is  very  heautiful.  I  went  up  to 
my  bedroom  a  few  moments  ago,  and  sat  at  the  window 
looking  over  Stephen's  Green.  There  was  a  blue  mist 
hanging  over  the  trees,  and  the  sky  was  full  of  light  and 
colour.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  place  in  the  world 
where  one  sees  so  much  of  the  sky  as  in  Dublin.  It  reaches 
up  and  up  until  you  feel  that  if  a  bird  were  to  pierce  the 
clouds  with  its  beak,  it  would  tear  a  hole  in  the  heavens  and 
let  the  universe  in.  And  while  I  urns  sitting  there,  I  felt 
very  near  to  you,  dearest.  In  ten  days  we  shall  he  mar- 
ried, and  then  you  will  come  with  me  and  see  these  places, 
too.  I  shall  become  Irish  over  again  when  I  show  you  my 
home,  and  I  shall  watch  Ireland  taking  hold  of  you  and 
absorbing  you  and  making  you  as  Irish  as  I  am.  You'll 
go  on  thinking  that  you're  English  until  some  one  speaks 
disparagingly  of  Ireland,  and  then  you'll  flare  up,  and 
you'll  he  Irish,  not  only  in  nature,  but  in  knowledge.  Ire- 
land does  that  to  people,  so  you  cannot  hope  to  escape. 
Good-night,  my  very  dear!" 

6 

On  Sunday,  he  went  into  the  mountains,  and  in  the  even- 
ing he  returned  to  Dublin.  There  was  an  extraordinary 
quietness  in  the  streets,  though  they  were  crowded  with 
people  .  .  .  the  quietness  that  comes  when  people  are  tired 
and  happy.  As  he  crossed  0  'Connell  Bridge,  he  stood  for  a 
few  moments  to  look  up  the  Liffey.     The  sunset  had  trans- 


CHANGING  WINDS  687 

muted  the  river  to  the  look  of  a  sheet  of  crinkled  gold,  and 
the  sunlight  made  the  houses  on  the  quays  look  warm  and 
lovely,  even  though  they  were  old  and  worn  and  discol- 
oured. "In  her  heart,"  he  thought,  "Dublin  is  still  a 
proud  lady,  although  her  dress  be  draggled!" 

He  turned  to  look  at  a  company  of  Volunteers  who  were 
marching  towards  Liberty  Hall.  There  were  little  girls  in 
Gaelic  dress  at  the  head  of  them,  accompanied  by  a  pale, 
tired-looking  woman,  with  tightened  lips,  who  stumped 
heavily  by  the  side  of  them;  and  following  them,  came 
young  men  and  boys  and  a  shuffling  group  of  hungry  la- 
bourers, misshapen  by  heavy  toil  and  privation  .  .  .  and 
as  the  company  passed  by,  girls  stood  on  the  pavement  and 
jeered  at  them.  They  pointed  to  the  woman  with  tight- 
ened lips,  and  mocked  at  her  uniform  and  her  tossed 
hair.  .  .  . 

"They're  fools,"  Henry  thought,  looking  at  them  as  they 
went  wearily  on,  "but,  by  God,  they're  finer  than  the  peo- 
ple who  jeer  at  them.  They  .  .  .  they  are  serving  some- 
thing .  .  .  and  these  Don't-Care-a-Damners  aren't  serving 
anything!  ..." 

There  was  a  man  at  his  elbow  who  turned  to  him  and 
said,  "Them  lads  'ud  run  like  hell  if  you  were  to  point  a 
penny  pop-gun  at  them!  If  a  peeler  was  to  take  their 
names,  they'd  be  shiverin'  with  fright.  They'd  fall  out  of 
their  trousers  with  the  terror  'd  be  on  them ! ' ' 

Henry  did  not  answer.  Indeed,  it  seemed  incredible  that 
there  was  any  fight  in  them  ...  if  he  had  been  asked  for 
his  opinion,  he  might  have  said  something  similar  to  what 
this  stranger  had  said  to  him  .  .  .  but  he  hated  to  hear 
the  man's  disparagement,  and  so  he  did  not  make  any 
answer  to  him. 

"I'd  rather  have  them  on  my  side  than  have  him,"  he 
thought  as  he  moved  away,  "with  the  stink  of  porter  on 
him!" 

It  sickened  him  to  see  the  generosity  and  the  youth  walk- 
ing in  the  company  of  the  hopelessness  of  Ireland,  training 


638  CHANGING  WINDS 

themselves  in  the  means  of  killing.  * '  If  they  'd  put  all  that 
energy  and  enthusiasm  into  something  that  will  preserve  life 
and  make  it  deeper  and  finer,  nothing  could  prevail  against 
them.  If  only  John  had  more  intellect  and  less  emotion 
...  if  Mineely  and  Connolly  were  less  bitter!" 

He  walked  along  Grafton  Street,  turning  phrases  over  in 
his  mind,  angry  phrases,  bitter  things  that  he  would  say  to 
John  Marsh  when  he  met  him. 

"What  have  young  lads  and  girls  to  do  with  Hate  and 
Death?"  he  said  to  himself,  as  if  he  were  talking  to  Marsh. 
"You're  perverting  them  from  their  purpose !  You  're  rob- 
bing God  of  His  due  ...  of  the  hope  that  fills  His  Heart 
with  each  generation!" 

"But  it's  no  good  talking  to  him  ...  he's  too  fond  of 
spilling  over.  If  he  were  like  Yeats,  content  to  love  Ire- 
land at  a  distance  ...  to  'arise  and  go  now'  no  further 
than  the  Euston  Road  ...  he  might  achieve  something, 
and  at  all  events,  he  'd  be  harmless ! ' ' 

He  turned  out  of  Grafton  Street  into  Stephen's  Green. 

"To-morrow,"  he  said  to  himself,  "I'll  go  to  Fairy- 
house  ! ' ' 

And  then  he  went  to  his  Club.  He  was  tired  and  sleepy, 
and  soon  after  supper,  he  went  to  bed. 


It  was  late  when  he  awoke  and  so,  feeling  lazy  after  his 
day's  climbing,  he  resolved  that  he  would  not  go  to  the 
races.  "I'll  loaf  about,"  he  said,  "and  to-night  I'll  go  to 
a  theatre."  There  was  a  letter  from  ]\Iary  and  one  from 
Roger.  ''Gerald  Luke  was  killed  in  France  last  week,  and 
so  was  Clifford  Dartrey.  Goeffrey  Grant  has  been  wounded 
badly.  The  Improved  Tories  have  suffered  heavily  in  the 
War.  ..."  Roger  wrote. 

When  he  had  breakfasted,  he  left  the  Club  and  walked 
towards  Sackville  Street.    He  would  go  to  the  Abbey  The- 


CHANGING  WINDS  589 

atre,  he  thought,  and  book  a  seat  for  the  evening  perform- 
ance. 

There  was  an  odd,  bewildered  look  about  the  people  who 
stood  in  groups  in  Sackville  Street. 

"What's  up?"  Henry  said  to  a  bystander. 

"Begod,"  said  the  man,  "I  think  there's  a  rebellion  on. 
That's  what  this  woman  says  anyway!" 

"A  what?" 

' '  A  rebellion  or  something  of  the  sort.  You  can  ask  her 
yourself!  Begod,  it's  a  quare  day  to  have  it.  The  peo- 
ple'11  not  enjoy  themselves  at  all.  ..." 

Henry  turned  to  the  woman  who  was  standing  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  group,  endlessly  relating  her  experience. 

"I  went  to  the  Gener'l,"  she  said,  **an'  I  said  to  the  man 
behin'  the  counter,  'Gimme  two  ha'penny  postcards  an'  a 
penny  stamp  an'  change  for  a  shillin',  if  you  please!'  and 
I  hadn't  the  words  out  of  my  mouth  'til  a  man  in  a  green 
uniform  .  .  .  one  of  them  Sinn  Feiners  .  .  .  come  up  to 
me,  an'  pointed  a  gun  at  me,  an'  toul'  me  to  go  home. 
'  Go  home  yourself ! '  says  I,  an '  I  give  his  oul '  gun  a  push 
with  my  hand,  'an'  who  are  you  to  be  orderin'  a  person 
about?'  'If  you  don't  go  on  when  I  tell  you,'  says  he, 
'I'll  shoot  you!'  an'  I  declare  to  my  God  he  looked  as  if 
he'd  blow  the  head  off  you.  'Well,  wait  till  I  get  my 
change  anyway,'  says  I.  'Ye'll  get  no  change  here,' 
says  he.  'I  will  so,'  I  said,  and  I  turned  to  the  man  behind 
the  counter,  but,  sure,  God  bless  you,  he  wasn't  there. 
'Well,  this  bates  all,'  says  I  to  the  Sinn  Feiner,  'an  if  the 
peelers  catches  a  houldt  of  you,  you'll  get  into  bother 
over  the  head  of  this!'  I  picked  up  my  shillin',  an'  I 
went  out.  The  place  was  full  of  them.  They  were  or- 
derin' everybody  out,  except  a  couple  or  three  soldiers 
that  they  made  prisoners.  An'  if  you  were  to  go  down 
there  now,  you'd  see  them,  young  fellas  that  I  could  bate 
with  my  one  hand,  cocked  up  behin'  the  windas  with  guns 
in  their  hands,  an'  telling  people  to  move  on  out  of 
that.  .  .  ." 


540  CHANGING  WINDS 

Some  one  came  into  the  group,  and  said  "What's  that?" 
and  she  turned  to  him  and  began  again.  *  *  I  went  in  to  the 
Gener'l,"  she  said,  "an'  I  said  to  the  man  behin'  the 
counter, 'Gimme  two  ha'penny  postcards.  ..." 

Henry  made  his  way  out  of  the  group  of  listeners, 
and  walked  down  the  street  towards  the  General  Post  Of- 
fice. 

*  *  It 's  absurd, ' '  he  said.    *  *  Ridiculous !    A  rebellion ! ' ' 

But  something  was  toward.  On  the  roof  of  the  Post  Of- 
fice there  were  two  flags,  a  green  flag  with  a  motto  on  it, 
and  a  tri-colour,  orange,  white  and  green.  There  was 
hardly  any  wind,  and  the  flags  hung  limply  from  their 
staffs,  but  as  Henry  approached  the  Post  Office,  the  wind 
stirred,  and  the  green  flag  fluttered  enough  for  him  to  read 
what  was  printed  on  it.  It  bore  the  legend  Irish  repub- 
lic. 

"It's  a  poor  sort  of  performance,  this!"  he  said  as  he 
came  up  to  the  building. 

All  the  windows  on  the  ground  floor  were  broken,  and 
many  of  those  on  the  upper  floors,  and  in  each  window, 
on  sacks  laid  on  piled  furniture,  were  one  or  two  young 
volunteers,  each  with  a  rifle  cocked.  .  .  . 

8 

There  was  a  holiday  mood  on  the  people.  They  had  come 
out  to  enjoy  themselves,  and  here  was  an  entertainment 
beyond  their  dreams  of  pleasure.  ...  It  was  a  dangerous 
kind  of  joke  to  play  .  .  .  one  of  them  oul'  guns  might  go 
off,  and  who  knows  who  might  get  killed  dead  .  .  .  and  it 
was  a  serious  thing  to  seize  possession  of  the  Post  Office 
...  if  the  peelers  was  to  come  an'  catch  them  at  it  an' 
bring  them  before  the  magistrates,  they'd  be  damn  near 
transported  .  .  .  but  it  was  the  great  joke  all  the  same. 
Whoever  thought  there  would  be  the  like  of  that  to  see, 
and  not  a  penny  to  pay  for  it.  ...  The  minute  the  peel- 
ers came  up  .  .  .  where  in  hell  were  the  peelers  ? 


CHANGING  WINDS  541 

It  was  then  that  they  began  to  believe  that  there  was 
more  than  a  joke  in  this  rebellion.  There  were  no  police- 
men to  be  seen  anywhere.  "That's  strange  now!  There 
ought  to  be  a  peeler  or  two  about!  ..." 

Then  some  one,  pale  and  startled,  came  by.  "TheyVe 
killed  a  policeman !"  he  said.  "  The  unfortunate  man !  I 
was  coming  past  the  Castle,  and  I  saw  a  Sinn  Feiner  go  up 
to  him  and  blow  his  brains  out.  Not  a  word  of  warning! 
The  poor  man  put  up  his  hand  to  bid  them  go  back  .  .  . 
they  were  trying  to  get  into  the  Castle  .  .  .  and  the  Sinn 
Feiner  lifted  his  rifle  and  shot  him  dead!  ..." 

*  *  Begod,  it 's  in  earnest  they  are !  .  ,  . " 

"But  what  can  they  do?  They  can't  hold  out  against 
the  British  Army.  ..." 

"They  might  do  a  lot,  now!  They're  mad,  the  whole  of 
them!  What  in  hell  do  they  want  to  start  a  rebellion 
for?  .  .  ." 

Henry  moved  away.  He  went  from  group  to  group,  lis- 
tening to  one  for  a  while,  and  then  moving  on  to  another. 
There  were  many  rumours  already  flying  through  the  crowd. 
The  Germans  had  landed  in  the  "West,  and  were  marching  to 
Dublin.  A  "mysterious  stranger"  had  been  captured  on 
the  coast  of  Kerry  a  few  days  before.  * '  It  was  Casement ! '  * 
The  German  Navy  had  made  a  raid  on  England,  and  the 
British  Fleet  had  been  badly  beaten.  .  .  . 

A  youth,  holding  a  rifle  with  a  fixed  bayonet,  stood  on 
sentry-go  in  the  middle  of  the  street.  He  was  very  pale 
and  tired  and  nervous-looking,  but  looked  as  resolute  as  he 
looked  tired.  He  did  not  speak  to  any  one,  nor  did  any 
one  speak  to  him.  He  stood  there,  staring  fixedly  in  front 
of  him,  watching  and  watching.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  sound  of  rumbling  carts,  and  the  noise  of 
people  cheering,  and  presently  a  procession  of  wagons, 
loaded  with  cauliflower,  and  guarded  by  armed  Volun- 
teers, came  out  of  a  side  street,  and  drove  up  to  the  Post 
Office. 

' '  The  Commissariat ! ' '  some  one  said.    '  *  Begod  they'll  be 


542  CHANGING  WINDS 

tired  of  cauliflower  before  they're  through  with  that  lot!" 

It  was  comical  to  see  those  loads  of  cauliflower  being 
driven  past.  Ireland  was  to  fight  for  freedom  with  her 
stomach  full  of  cauliflower.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  Proclamation  of  the  Republic  on  a  wall  near 
by,  and  he  hurried  to  read  it. 

"What's  the  thing  at  the  head  of  it?"  a  woman  asked, 
gazing  at  the  Gaelic  inscription  on  top  of  the  Proclamation. 

"That's  Irish,"  the  man  beside  her  replied. 

'  *  I  know  that.    What  does  it  mean  ? ' ' 

"Begod,  I  don't  know.  ..." 

Henry  read  the  Proclamation  through,  and  then  re-read 
the  finely-phrased  end  of  it ! 

We  place  the  Irish  Republic  under  the  protection  of  the 
Most  High  God,  Whose  Blessing  we  invoke  on  our  arms,  and 
we  pray  that  no  one  who  serves  that  cause  will  dishonour 
it.  In  this  supreme  hour  the  Irish  nation  must  hy  its 
valour  and  discipline,  and  by  the  readiness  of  its  children 
to  sacrifice  themselves  for  the  common  good,  prove  itself 
worthy  of  the  august  destiny  to  which  it  is  called. 

"That's  John,"  he  said  to  himself,  "or  MacDonagh! 
And  they  began  the  thing  by  killing  an  unarmed  man! 
Their  fine  phrases  won't  cover  that  mean  deed!  ..." 


He  went  back  to  his  Club,  and  on  the  way,  found  that 
the  rebels  were  in  possession  of  Stephen's  Green.  The 
gates  were  closed,  and  at  each  gate  were  armed  guards.  He 
looked  through  the  railings,  and  saw  some  boys  lying  on  the 
turf,  with  their  rifles  beside  them.  They  did  not  move  nor 
look  up,  but  lay  very  still  and  quiet,  with  a  strange,  pre- 
occupied expression  on  their  faces.  A  little  further  on, 
other  lads  were  digging  up  the  earth. 


CHANGING  WINDS  543 

"What  are  you  doing?"  he  said  to  one  of  them,  and  the 
lad  straightened  himself  and  wiped  the  sweat  from  his  brow. 

"I  don't  know,  sir!"  he  said,  smiling  nervously.  "I'm 
supposed  to  be  diggin'  a  trench,  but  I  think  I'm  diggin' 
my  grave!  ..." 

A  trench !  When  he  looked  at  the  poor  scraping  of  earth 
and  sod,  he  felt  a  fierce  anger  against  ]\Iarsh  and  his  friends 
swelling  in  his  heart.  "They  haven't  the  gumption  to 
know  that  this  is  the  worst  place  they  could  have  chosen 
to  entrench  themselves,  even  if  they  knew  how  to  make 
trenches!"  On  all  sides  of  the  Green  were  high  houses, 
from  which  it  would  be  easy  to  pick  off  every  man  that  lay 
in  the  trenches.  .  .  . 

There  were  carts  and  motor-cars  drawn  across  the  street 
to  make  a  barricade,  and  most  of  the  gates  of  the  Green  had 
garden-seats  and  planks  lying  against  them.  There  were 
even  branches,  torn  from  the  trees  and  shrubs,  thrust 
through  the  railings.  ... 

He  went  into  his  Club  to  lunch.  "They're  in  the  Col- 
lege of  Surgeons,  sir!"  a  servant  said.  "They  say  Ma- 
dame's  in  the  Green!  ..." 

"Madame?"  he  said  vaguely. 

"Yes.  j\Iadame  Markiewicz.  They  killed  a  police- 
man. .  .  ." 

"Do  you  mean  the  man  at  the  Castle?" 

* '  No,  sir.  I  didn  't  hear  of  him.  They  killed  this  one  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Green.  There's  cold  lamb  and  cold 
chicken,  sir!" 

"I'll  have  lamb!  .  .  ." 

He  hurried  over  his  meal.  He  had  little  appetite  for 
eating,  and  when  he  had  finished,  he  went  to  the  smoking- 
room  and  wrote  to  ]\Iary.  ''Don't  he  alarmed  if  you  see 
anything  about  an  Irish  Reiellion  in  the  newspapers,"  he 
wrote.  ''It  will  probably  be  over  by  to-morrow.  I'm 
quite  all  right.  You're  not  to  worry!  ..."  And  when  he 
had  finished  it  he  went  out  and  posted  it.    *  *  Good  Lord ! ' ' 


644  CHANGING  WINDS 

he  said  aloud,  as  the  letter  fell  into  the  box,  * '  I  f orgoc  that 
they've  got  hold  of  the  General.  I  don't  suppose  there'll 
be  a  collection!" 

He  returned  to  the  Club,  but  he  could  not  keep  still. 
There  was  no  one,  except  the  servants  and  himself,  in  the 
house,  and  the  emptiness  of  it  made  him  feel  restless. 
Looking  out  of  the  window,  he  saw  little  girls,  like  those  he 
had  seen  on  Sunday  night,  running  about  the  Green,  busy 
on  errands.  .  .  . 

**The  Kids'  Rebellion!"  he  said  to  himself.  .  .  . 

He  left  the  club,  and  walked  round  the  Green  again,  and 
as  he  passed  the  College  of  Surgeons,  two  men  appeared  on 
the  roof,  and  proceeded  to  unfold  the  Republican  tri-col- 
our.  They  were  clumsy,  and  they  fumbled  with  it,  en- 
tangling the  cords  .  .  .  but  at  last  they  got  it  free,  and  then 
they  hauled  it  to  the  top  of  the  flagstaff.  The  people  on 
the  pavement  below  watched  it  as  it  fluttered  in  the  light 
breez«,  but  none  of  them  spoke  or  cheered.  The  rebels  in 
the  Green  made  no  sound  either.  The  Republican  flag 
was  hauled  to  its  place  in  silence. 

"They  don't  seem  very  grateful  for  their  deliverance," 
Henry  thought,  glancing  at  the  bystanders  as  he  moved  up 
the  street.  There  was  a  crowd  of  people  on  the  edge  of  the 
pavement,  and  he  thrust  himself  into  it,  and  glanced  over 
the  shoulder  of  a  woman  at  the  ground.  There  was  a  mess 
of  thick,  congealing  blood  splashed  on  the  road  and  the 
kerb. 

** That's  where  the  peeler  was  killed!"  the  woman  said  to 
him.  .  .  . 

He  edged  out  of  the  crowd  as  quickly  as  he  could,  feel- 
ing sick  with  horror,  and  again  he  felt  a  bitter  anger 
against  John  Marsh. 

"He  was  going  to  Mass  every  morning,  damn  him,  to 
make  sure  of  his  own  soul,  but  he  didn't  give  the  policeman 
time  to  make  any  preparation.  All  his  high  motives  and  his 
idealism  tumble  down  to  that  .  .  .  that  mess  on  the  pave- 
ment! .  .  ." 


CHANGING  WINDS  645 

10 

**But  what's  the  Government  doing?"  he  wondered. 

There  were  no  police,  no  soldiers,  no  authority  anywhere. 
It  seemed  unbelievable  that  a  number  of  armed  youths 
and  men  could  seize  a  capital  city  without  opposition  of  any 
kind.  He  wondered  whether  there  was  any  truth  in  the 
rumours  that  had  been  floating  about  the  city  all  day. 
Could  it  possibly  be  that  the  Germans  had  effected  a  land- 
ing in  Ireland  and  were  marching  on  the  city?  Could  it 
be  true  that  the  British  Fleet  had  been  destroyed  by  the 
German  Fleet?  Had  the  Government  thrown  up  the 
sponge?  .  .  . 

He  met  O'Dowd,  an  official  whom  he  had  seen  several 
times  at  the  Club.  "Where's  the  Government?"  he 
asked.  .  .  . 

"Well,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  Quinn,  I  don't  know.  I 
believe  there's  an  election  going  on  at  Trinity  College.  It's 
a  damned  comic  affair,  this!" 

"Comic!" 

"Well,  I  mean  to  say,  it's  a  bit  rum,  isn't  it?" 

11 

He  went  back  to  the  Club  in  the  evening.  There  were  no 
lights  in  the  streets,  and  as  the  dusk  settled  down,  the 
crowds  of  holiday-makers  began  to  move  homewards. 
There  were  no  trams  running  and  few  cars  to  be  seen,  and 
the  tired  crowd  that  had  been  standing  or  walking  about 
all  day,  dragged  itself  home  listlessly  and  heavily.  There 
was  a  sense  of  foreboding  over  the  people,  and  some  of  them 
glanced  apprehensively  about  them.  The  thing  had  been 
funny  in  the  daylight,  but  it  was  getting  dark  now  .  .  . 
and  who  knew  what  might  be  lurking  in  the  shadows  ?  It 
was  strange  that  there  were  no  police  to  be  seen  anywhere, 
and  stranger  still  that  the  soldiers  had  not  appeared.  .  .  , 

There  was  a  Sinn  Feiner  on  guard  at  the  gate  near 


5i!6  CHANGING  WINDS 

Henry's  Club,  and  sitting  at  the  open  window,  Henry 
could  see  him  very  distinctly:  a  little,  red-haired,  angry 
man,  who  chewed  his  moustache  and  gaped  about  him  with 
bloodshot  eyes.  There  were  other  Sinn  Feiners  with  him, 
but  he  was  the  most  distinctive.  He  could  not  stay  still : 
he  moved  about  continually,  going  into  the  Park  and  com- 
ing out  again,  challenging  passers-by,  sloping  his  rifle  and 
ordering  it,  and  then  sloping  it  again.  "The  thing's  get- 
ting on  his  nerves,"  Henry  thought,  as  he  watched  him; 
and  while  he  watched,  an  elderly  man  came  past  the  Shel- 
bourne  Hotel  in  the  uniform  of  a  naval  officer.  The  Sinn 
Feiners  saw  him,  and  the  red-haired  man  ordered  his  sub- 
ordinates to  arrest  him.  They  ran  across  the  street  and 
attempted  to  seize  him,  but  he  resisted,  and  raised  his  walk- 
ing stick  to  defend  himself.  A  rebel  caught  hold  of  the 
stick,  and  the  two  men  stood  there,  against  a  gateway, 
struggling  to  wrest  the  stick  from  each  other.  The  up-and- 
down  movement  of  their  arms  was  like  the  quick,  jerky 
movement  of  figures  in  a  film,  and  for  a  moment  or  two, 
Henry  wanted  to  laugh  .  .  .  but  the  desire  died  when  he 
saw  the  red-haired  man  raising  his  rifle  and  aiming  at  the 
old  man's  heart.  .  .  . 

*  *  Oh,  my  God,  he 's  going  to  shoot  him ! "  he  shouted  out, 
jumping  up  from  his  seat  and  leaning  out  of  the  window. 
"Don't  shoot  him  .  .  .  don't  shoot  him!"  he  cried.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  he  was  yelling  at  the  top  of  his  voice, 
but  that  could  not  have  been  so,  for  no  one  turned  to  look 
.  .  .  and  yet  he  could  hear  the  red-haired  man  distinctly. 

**I  have  ye  covered,"  he  was  saying,  "an'  I'll  shoot  ye 
if  ye  don't  give  in!  .  .  ." 

The  old  man  held  on  to  the  stick  for  a  moment  or  two,  and 
then,  straightening  himself,  he  surrendered ;  and  the  rebels 
led  him  into  the  Park.  Through  the  trees,  Henry  could 
see  him  being  conducted  before  a  rebel  officer  who  saluted 
him  and  began  to  interrogate  him.  Then  the  procession 
moved  off  into  the  centre  of  the  Park,  and  the  little  angry, 
red-haired  man  returned  to  the  gate. 


CHANGING  WINDS  647 

"In  the  morning,"  Henry  exclaimed  to  himself,  **in  the 
morning,  that  little  swine  will  sing  another  song!" 


12 

A  horse-drawn  cab  came  down  the  street,  and  as  it  ap- 
proached, the  guard  at  the  gate  turned  out,  and  challenged 
the  driver.    "Halt!"  they  shouted. 

"Ah,  g'long  with  you!"  the  driver  replied,  whipping 
up  his  horse. 

"Halt!"  they  called  again,  and  a  third  time  "Halt!" 
but  the  driver  did  not  heed  them,  and  then  they  fired  at 
him.  .  .  .  There  was  a  clatter  of  hooves  on  the  street,  and 
the  horse  fell  to  the  ground,  striking  sparks  from  the  stones 
as  it  struggled  to  rise  again.  The  driver  did  not  pause: 
he  jumped  from  his  box  with  amazing  celerity  and  disap- 
peared so  swiftly  that  the  rebels  could  not  catch  him.  And 
while  the  horse  lay  struggling  on  the  street,  a  motor-car 
came  by,  and  again  the  rebels  sent  out  their  challenge, 
and  again  the  challenge  was  ignored.  "Halt!  Halt! 
Halt!  ..."  The  chauffeur  drove  on,  and  the  rebels  fired 
on  the  occupants  of  the  car.  There  was  a  swift  applica- 
tion of  brakes,  and  the  car  slithered  up  against  the  pave- 
ment .  .  .  and  as  it  slithered,  a  man  stood  up  beside  the 
driver,  holding  his  hand  to  his  side,  and  yelled,  "Oh,  I'm 
dead!    I'm  dead!  .  .  ." 

The  chauffeur  hurried  away.  .  .  . 

The  rebels  gathered  round  the  shrieking  man.  "Why 
didn  't  you  stop  when  we  challenged  you ! ' '  they  demanded. 

"Aw!    Aw!    Aw!"  he  answered.  .  .  . 

"Like  a  stuck  pig!"  thought  Henry.  "Squealing  like 
a  stuck  pig!" 

His  head  was  rolling,  but  he  was  able  to  walk.  "He's 
not  much  hurt,"  Henry  murmured  to  himself,  "but  he's 
damned  frightened." 

"Aw,  what  did  ye  do  it  for?    Aw!    Aw!     Aw!  .  .  .** 

"Take  him  to  the  hospital!  ..." 


548  CHANGING  WINDS 

They  led  him  a  little  way  towards  the  hospital  of  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul,  and  then,  for  some  reason,  changed  their 
minds,  and  took  him  into  the  Park.  It  was  difficult  now  to 
see  what  was  happening.  There  was  a  derelict  tram  near 
the  club,  and  beyond  that,  still  pawing  at  the  ground,  was 
the  wounded  horse.  .  .  . 

"Why  don't  they  shoot  the  poor  beast!"  Henry  ex- 
claimed. 

But  it  would  not  enter  their  minds  to  put  the  animal  out 
of  pain.  They  were  Catholics,  and  Catholic  peoples,  the 
world  over,  are  cruel  to  beasts.  Too  intent  on  pitying 
their  own  souls,  to  have  pity  on  animals.  .  .  . 

13 

He  closed  the  shutters  and  turned  on  the  light.  *  *  I  won- 
der where  John  is?"  he  thought  as  he  did  so.  "This  is 
why  he  couldn't  come  to  Glendalough  with  me.  What  the 
hell  does  he  think  he's  going  to  gain  by  it?"  He  glanced 
about  the  room.  "It's  damned  odd,"  he  said  aloud,  "but 
I  don't  feel  frightened.  I  should  have  thought  I'd  feel 
scared.  ...  Of  course,  as  there  was  going  to  be  a  rebel- 
lion, I'm  rather  glad  I'm  here  to  see  it!" 

He  went  to  his  bedroom  and  got  a  pack  of  patience  cards. 

"There'll  be  no  theatre  to-night!"  he  said.  "I  think 
I'll  play 'Miss  Milligan.'  ..." 

14 

The  silence  of  the  house  made  him  feel  restless. 

"I'll  go  to  bed,"  he  exclaimed.  "I  may  as  well  get  all 
the  sleep  I  can." 

He  went  to  his  room,  and  stumbled  towards  the  windows. 

"I'll  close  the  shutters  while  I'm  undressing,"  he  went 
on.    "I  don't  want  to  be  'potted'  needlessly!" 

He  tried  to  see  into  the  Park,  but  the  great  masses  of 
trees  that  undulated  like  a  rough  sea,  prevented  him  from 


CHANGING  WINDS  549 

iiueing  anything.  There  were  figures  at  the  gate  ...  on 
guard ! 

"I  wonder  if  that  little  red-haired  man's  still  there," 
he  thought.  "Poor  devils!  Some  of  them  must  feel 
damned  queer  to-night!  ..." 

He  closed  the  shutters,  and  switched  the  light  on,  and 
then,  when  he  had  undressed  he  darkened  the  room  again. 
"I  must  have  some  air,"  he  said,  opening  the  shutters. 

He  climbed  into  bed.  Now  and  then  a  rifle-shot  was 
fired,  and  sometimes  there  was  a  succession  of  shots.  .  .  . 

"In  the  morning,"  he  said,  as  he  turned  on  his  side  and 
closed  his  eyes,  ' '  they  '11  be  cleared  out  of  that !  .  .  . " 


THE  THIKTEENTH  CHAPTER 

1 

He  awoke  suddenly,  and  sat  up  in  bed.  "Good  Lord!" 
he  exclaimed,  ''I've  been  asleep!"  It  was  still  dark,  but 
less  dark  than  it  was  when  he  came  to  bed.  He  could  just 
see  the  time  by  holding  his  watch  close  to  his  eyes. 
"Four,"  he  murmured.  It  was  strange  that  he  should 
have  slept  at  all,  for  there  had  been  spasmodic  firing  all 
night.  He  got  out  of  bed,  and  went  across  his  room  to 
the  window,  and  looked  out,  and  as  he  looked,  the  wounded 
horse  struggled  to  rise,  pawing  the  ground  feebly,  and  then 
fell  over  on  its  side.  "It  isn't  dead!  ..."  "When  he  had 
looked  at  it  last,  it  had  been  lying  very  still,  and  he  had 
thought  it  was  dead. 

He  looked  across  the  road  to  the  Park  gates,  but  could 
not  see  any  one  standing  there.  * '  Perhaps  they  've  gone ! ' ' 
There  was  a  shapeless  thing  lying  on  the  ground,  outside 
the  gates,  but  he  could  not  make  out  what  it  was.  In  the 
dim  light,  it  looked  like  a  great  piece  of  paper  .  .  .  the 
debris  of  a  windy  day. 

There  was  no  movement  anywhere  .  .  .  the  horse  was 
still  now  .  .  .  but  now  and  then  a  single  shot  rang  out, 
and  then  came  a  volley.  "You'd  think  they  were  just  try- 
ing to  make  a  noise!  I  wonder  what's  been  happening  all 
night,"  he  said,  as  he  went  back  to  bed. 


He  fell  asleep  again,  and  when  he  awoke,  wakened  by  a 
heavier  sound  of  shooting,  it  was  almost  six  o'clock,  and 
it  was  light.    "That'  must  be  the  isoldiers,"  he  thought, 

550 


CHANGING  WINDS  551 

listening  to  the  heavier  rifle^  fire.  He  sat  up  in  bed,  and 
glanced  about  the  room.  "I  was  an  ass  not  to  keep  the 
shutters  closed,"  he  said  aloud.  "A  stray  bullet  might 
have  come  in  here  ...  I  wonder  whether  the  shutters 
would  stop  a  bullet.    After  all,  Bibles  do!  .  .  ." 

He  could  just  see  the  Republican  flag  floating  from  the 
flagstaff  on  the  roof  of  the  College  of  Surgeons.  "They're 
still  there,  then ! ' '  And  while  he  sat  looking  at  it,  he  heard 
the  sound  of  some  one,  wearing  heavy  boots,  coming  down 
the  streets,  making  loud  clattering  echoes  in  the  silence. 
"That's  funny!"  he  said.  "People  are  going  about  al- 
ready.    Perhaps  it's  over  .  .  .  practically  over!  ..." 

He  got  out  of  bed,  and  as  he  did  so,  he  heard  the  sharp 
rattle  of  rifles,  and  when  the  echo  of  it  had  ceased,  he  could 
not  hear  the  noise  of  heavy  treading  any  more.  He  stood 
still  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  listening,  and  presently  he 
heard  a  groan.  He  ran  to  the  window  and  looked  out.  In 
the  roadway,  beneath  him,  an  old  man  was  lying  on  his 
back,  groaning  very  faintly. 

' '  They  've  killed  him ! ' '  Henry  murmured,  glancing  across 
the  road  at  the  hotel,  from  which  the  sound  of  firing  had 
come.  "They  didn't  challenge  him  .  .  .  they  just  shot 
him!" 

Four  times,  the  old  man  groaned,  and  then  he  died.  He 
was  lying  in  the  attitude  of  a  young  child  asleep.  One 
leg  was  outstretched  and  the  other  was  lightly  raised.  His 
right  arm  was  lying  straight  out  from  his  body,  and  the 
hand  was  turned  up  and  hollowed.  Very  easy  and  nat- 
ural was  his  attitude,  lying  there  in  the  morning  light.  He 
looked  like  a  labourer.  "Going  to  his  work,"  I  suppose. 
"Thinking  little  of  the  rebellion.  Just  stumping  along  to 
his  job  .  .  .  and  then!  ..." 

There  was  a  bundle  lying  by  his  side,  a  red  handkerchief 
that  seemed  to  be  holding  food  .  .  .  and  flowing  towards 
it,  trickling,  so  slowly  did  it  move,  from  his  body  was  a 
little  red  dribble.  .  .  . 

Henry  looked  at  him  with  a  feeling  of  curiosity  and  pity. 


652  CHANGING  WINDS 

He  had  never  seen  a  man  killed  before.  He  had  never 
seen  any  dead  person,  not  even  Mrs.  Clutters,  until  his 
father  died.  He  had  purposely  avoided  seeing  Mrs.  Clut- 
ters' body  .  .  .  something  in  the  thought  of  death  repelled 
him  and  made  him  reluctant  to  look  at  a  corpse,  and  so, 
when  he  had  been  asked  if  he  would  like  to  see  Mrs.  Clutters, 
he  had  made  some  evasive  reply.  It  had  been  different 
when  his  father  died.  He  had  looked  on  him,  not  as  a 
dead  man,  but  as  his  father,  still,  even  in  death,  his  father, 
able  to  love  and  be  loved.  When  he  thought  of  death,  he 
thought,  not  of  Mr.  Quinn,  but  of  Mrs.  Clutters,  and  al- 
ways it  seemed  to  him  that  the  dead  were  frightful.  .  .  . 
But  this  old  man,  a  few  moments  ago  intent  on  getting  to 
his  work  in  time,  and  now,  cognisant,  perhaps  of  all  the 
mysteries  of  this  world,  had  nothing  frightful  about  him. 
There  was  beauty  in  the  way  he  was  lying  in  the  road- 
way ...  in  that  careless,  graceful  attitude  ...  as  if  he 
were  gratefully  resting  after  much  labour.  .  .  . 

He  looked  across  the  roadway,  and  now  it  was  plain  that 
the  shapeless  thing  that  had  looked  in  the  dim  light  like 
paper  blown  to  a  corner  by  the  wind,  was  a  dead  man.  He, 
too,  was  lying  on  his  back,  with  his  legs  stretched  straight 
out  and  slightly  parted  .  .  .  and  while  Henry  looked  at 
him,  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  man  was  familiar  to  him. 
The  brown  dust-coat  he  was  wearing!  .  .  .  And  then  he 
remembered.  It  was  the  red-haired,  angry-looking,  nerv- 
ous man,  who  had  chewed  his  moustache  and  gaped  about 
him  with  bloodshot  eyes.  .  .  . 

He  dressed,  and  went  downstairs.  The  servants  were 
up,  and  moving  about  the  house,  and  one  of  them  came 
to  him. 

"Will  you  have  your  breakfast  now,  sir?"  she  asked, 
and  when  he  had  answered  that  he  would,  she  said,  "There's 
no  milk,  sir.    The  milkman  didn't  come  this  morning!" 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  he  replied.  "I'll  have  it  with 
out!" 

He  went  to  the  front  of  the  house,  while  his  breakfast 


CHANGING  WINDS  658 

was  being  prepared,  and  looked  out  of  the  window.  In 
the  bushes  on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  he  could  see  a 
youth,  crawling  on  his  stomach,  and  dragging  a  rifle  after 
him.  He  raised  himself  on  to  his  knees,  and  glanced  up 
at  the  hotel,  where  there  were  some  soldiers  who  had  been 
brought  in  during  the  night,  and  when  he  had  raised  him- 
self, the  soldiers  in  the  upper  windows  saw  him,  and  fired 
on  him.  He  got  up  and  ran  across  the  path  towards  the 
shelter  of  the  trees,  and  as  he  ran,  the  bullets  spattered 
about  him.  Then  he  staggered  .  .  .  and  Henry  could  not 
see  him  again. 

3 
An  ambulance  came  and  the  bodies  of  the  rebel  and  the 
labourer  were  put  into  it  and  taken  away.  The  horse  had 
been  hauled  to  the  pavement,  and  it  lay  in  a  great  con- 
gealed mess  of  blood  that  had  poured  from  a  gash  in  its 
throat.  .  .  . 


Later  in  the  morning,  the  people  began  to  move  about, 
and  after  a  while  the  streets  were  full  of  sightseers.  It 
was  possible  now  to  learn  something  of  what  happened  on 
the  previous  day  and  during  the  night.  There  had  been 
fierce  fighting  in  places.  Soldiers  were  hurrying  from  the 
Curragh,  from  the  North  of  Ireland,  from  England.  The 
thing  was  serious  .  .  .  the  rebels  had  seized  various  strate- 
gic points,  and  were  determined  to  fight  hardly.  During 
the  night,  realising  that  Stephen's  Green  was  a  dangerous 
place  to  be  in,  they  had  left  it  for  the  shelter  of  the  College 
of  Surgeons.  Some  of  them  were  still  there,  sniping  from 
safe  points. 

Henry  went  out  and  wandered  about  the  streets.  If  there 
were  soldiers  in  Dublin,  there  were  very  few,  and  the  rebels 
still  had  possession  of  the  city.  He  listened  to  the  com- 
ments of  the  people  who  passed  him,  and  as  he  listened,  he 
realised  that  there  was  resentment  everywhere  against  the 


654  CHANGING  WINDS 

Sinn  Feiners.  Behind  one  of  the  gates  of  the  Park,  a  Sinn 
Feiner  was  lying  face  downwards  in  the  hole  he  had  made 
to  be  a  trench,  and  the  crowd  climbed  up  the  railings  to 
gape  at  him.  A  youth  thrust  his  way  through  the  people 
and  peered  at  the  dead  man,  and  then  he  turned  to  the 
crowd  and  said  to  them,  ''Let's  get  the  poor  chap  out  and 
bury  him!"  A  girl  looked  at  him  resentfully,  and  hur- 
ried to  a  towsled  woman  standing  on  the  kerb,  and  told 
her  what  the  youth  had  said,  and  instantly  the  woman 
rushed  at  him  and  hit  him  about  the  head  and  back.  ' '  No, 
ye '11  not  get  him  out,"  she  yelled  at  him.  "Let  him  lie 
there  an'  rot  like  the  poor  soldiers!" 

"They  forgot,  the  Sinn  Feiners,  that  these  women's  hus- 
bands and  sons  are  at  the  Front ! ' '  Henry  thought. 

What  madness  was  it  that  possessed  them  to  rise?  A 
little  group  of  men  and  boys  had  set  itself  against  a  Power 
in  the  interests  of  people  who  did  not  desire  their  services. 
They  could  not  hope  to  win  the  fight  .  .  .  they  had  not 
the  gratitude  or  the  good  wishes  of  the  people  for  whom 
they  were  fighting.  What  were  they  going  to  do  next? 
They  had  taken  the  Post  Office  and  the  College  of  Surgeons 
and  other  places  because  there  was  no  one  to  prevent  them 
from  taking  them  .  .  .  but  what  were  they  going  to  do 
next?  They  could  not,  even  the  wildest  of  them,  believe 
that  this  immunity  from  attack  would  last  forever.  Was 
there  one  among  them  with  an  idea  of  the  future  of  Ire- 
land, of  the  complexities  of  government?  .  .  . 

He  wanted  to  get  hold  of  a  leader  of  them  and  ask  him 
just  what  he  proposed  to  do  with  Ireland  ?  .  .  . 


The  rumours  this  day  were  wilder  than  they  were  on 
Monday.  A  man  assured  Henry  that  the  Pope  had 
arrived  in  Ireland  on  an  aeroplane  and  that  Dr.  Walsh, 
the  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Dublin  had  committed  suicide 
the  minute  he  heard  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion.    Then     ^ 


CHANGING  WINDS  655 

the  rumour  changed,  and  it  was  said  that  the  Pope  had 
thrown  himself  from  the  roof  of  the  Vatican.  Lord  Wim- 
borne,  the  Viceroy,  had  been  taken  a  prisoner,  and  was  now 
interned  in  Liberty  Hall.  .  .  .  The  Orangemen,  sick  of 
England,  were  marching  to  the  support  of  the  Sinn  Feiners, 
under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Joseph  Devlin!  Ireland  was 
entirely  surrounded  by  German  submarines  in  order  to 
prevent  British  transports  from  landing  troops.  .  .  . 


There  was  looting  in  Saekville  Street.  Henry  had  made 
his  way  towards  the  General  Post  Office,  for  he  had  heard 
that  John  Marsh  was  there,  and  while  he  stood  about,  hop- 
ing that  he  might  see  him,  the  looting  began.  Half -starved 
people  swarmed  up  from  the  slums,  like  locusts,  and  seized 
all  they  could  find.  They  destroyed  things  in  sheer  wan- 
tonness. .  .  . 

"Well,  if  a  city  is  content  to  keep  such  slums  as  Dublin 
has,  it  must  put  up  with  the  consequences ! ' '  Henry  thought. 
And  while  he  watched,  he  saw  John  Marsh  going  to  a  shop 
which  was  being  looted.  He  hauled  a  hulking  lad  out  of 
the  broken  window  and  flung  him  back  into  the  crowd. 

"Damn  you,"  he  shouted,  "are  you  trying  to  disgrace 
your  country?"  He  pointed  his  rifle  at  the  crowd.  "I'll 
shoot  the  first  one  of  you  that  touches  a  thing ! ' ' 

But  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  control  the  looters,  and 
while  John  guarded  one  shop,  the  crowd  passed  on  to  an- 
other. 

"John!"  said  Henry,  going  up  to  him  and  touching  his 
arm. 

He  started  and  turned  round.  His  face  was  drawn  and 
haggard  and  very  pale. 

"Henry!"  he  said,  smiling.  "I  wondered  who  it  was. 
I  wish  you'd  gone  away  when  I  asked  you  to  go.  It  wasn't 
because  I  wanted  to  get  rid  of  you,  Henry.    I  wanted  you 


656  CHANGING  WINDS 

to  be  out  of  this  ...  so  that  you  could  go  and  get  mar- 
ried in  peace!" 

"You  can't  win,  John.    You  know  you  can't  win!  ..." 

"I  know  we  can't  win  a  military  success!  ..."  He 
drew  his  hand  across  his  eyes.  "My  God,  I'm  tired, 
Henry!"  he  said.  **I'm  worn  out.  I  haven't  slept  since 
Saturday  night.  ..." 

"John!" 

"Yes,  Henry,  what  is  it?" 

"Come  away  with  me.  You  know  you  can't  win  .  .  . 
you  can't  possibly  win.  We'll  go  over  to  England  to- 
gether. ..." 

"I'm  fighting  England,  Henry,  not  visiting  it!" 

"You  can  hide  there  for  a  while  .  .  .  until  you  can  get 
away  to  France  or  America!" 

"Go  away  and  leave  them  now,  Henry?" 

"Yes.  The  longer  you  hold  out,  the  worse  it'll  be  for 
everybody.  The  people  are  against  you  ...  I've  heard 
things  to-day  that  I  never  expected  to  hear  in  Dublin.  ..." 

"I  know  they're  against  us.  We  thought  there  would 
be  more  on  our  side,  but  that's  all  the  more  reason  why 
we  should  fight.  The  people  are  getting  too  English  in 
their  ways,  Henry  ,  .  .  they  think  too  much  of  money. 
All  those  women  in  the  Combe  ...  do  you  know  why 
they're  against  us?  .  .  .  because  they  can't  get  their  sepa- 
ration allowances!  We  won't  win  a  military  success  .  .  . 
we  all  know  that  .  .  .  McDonagh  and  Pearse  and  Connolly 
and  Mineely  and  all  of  us  .  .  .  we  know  that  .  .  .  but 
we'll  win  a  spiritual  success!" 

"A  spiritual  success?" 

"Yes.  We'll  remind  the  people  that  Ireland  is  not  yet 
a  nation  and  that  there  are  Irishmen  who  are  still  willing 
to  die  for  their  country.  They've  become  very  English, 
but  they're  not  altogether  English,  Henry.  They've  still 
some  of  the  old  Irish  spirit  in  them,  and  we  may  quicken 
that!" 


CHANGING  WINDS  557 

"Nothing  will  ever  convince  you,  I  suppose,  that  the 
English  aren  't  a  robber  race  ?  .  .  . " 

"Nothing.  I  daresay  the  mass  of  the  people  are  decent 
enough,  but  I  don't  know  and  I  don't  care.  All  that  mat- 
ters to  me  is  that  my  countrymen  shall  not  become  like 
them!  .  .  ." 

"You're  ruining  the  work  of  thirty  years,  John.  Blow- 
ing it  up  in  a  childish  rage !  .  .  . " 

"You  always  thought  I  was  a  fool,  Henry,  but  I  don't 
think  as  you  think.  We  won  the  Home  Rule  Act  by  fair 
and  constitutional  means  .  .  .  and  they've  done  us  out  of 
it.  The  Ulster  men  had  only  to  yell  at  them,  and  they  gave 
in.    Do  you  think  they  '11  keep  their  word  after  the  War  ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

* '  Well,  I  don 't.  They  '11  use  that  damned  Amending  Act 
to  cheat  us  as  they've  cheated  us  before.  No,  Henry,  this 
is  a  poor  hope,  but  it  is  a  hope.  You  see,  when  we're  beaten 
and  those  of  us  who  are  left  alive,  surrender,  the  English 
will  be  sure  to  do  the  right  thing  .  .  .  from  our  point  of 
view !  That 's  one  of  the  things  we  count  on;  They  '11  put 
us  down  with  great  firmness.  They'll  make  an  example  of 
us.  They'll  shoot  us,  Henry  .  .  .  and  when  they  do  that, 
we'll  win.  We're  not  popular  now  ...  oh,  I  don't  need 
you  to  tell  me  that  .  .  .  but  we'll  be  popular  then.  The 
English  will  make  us  popular!" 

"Isn't  it  a  little  mean,  John,  to  hit  them  when  they 
aren't  looking?" 

"Mean!  They've  hit  us  often  enough,  haven't  they? 
They  got  us  on  the  ground  when  we  were  sick  and  kicked 
iis.    Why  shouldn't  we  take  advantage  of  them?" 

"The  Germans!  .  .  ." 

"Why  shouldn't  we  go  to  the  Germans,  or  to  any  one 
who  is  willing  to  help  us?  Wolfe  Tone  went  to  the 
French!  .  .  ." 

"You  won't  come  away  with  me?" 

"No.    I  came  here  to  die,  Henry,  not  to  be  safe!" 


668  CHANGING  WINDS 

They  stood  for  a  few  moments  in  silence,  looking  at  each 
other,  and  then  John  put  out  his  hand  to  Henry  who  took 
it  in  his. 

* '  I  must  get  back  now, ' '  John  said.  ' '  Good-bye,  Henry. 
I  don't  suppose  I  shall  ever  see  you  again.  If  we  lose,  you 
and  your  friends  can  come  and  try  your  way.  I've  al- 
ways wanted  to  die  for  Ireland  ever  since  I  was  able  to 
understand  anything  about  my  country,  and  I  shall  get 
my  wish  soon.     Good-bye,  Henry!" 

"Good-bye,  John!" 

**I  hope  you  and  your  wife  will  be  very  happy!"  He 
made  a  wry  smile,  as  he  went  on.  "I'm  afraid  you  won't 
be  able  to  get  to  England  just  as  soon  as  you  wished.  If 
you  'd  gone  when  I  asked  you  to  go !  .  .  . " 

*  *  I  must  get  back  now, ' '  he  said  again. 

"Yes,  John!" 

"I'm  glad  I  saw  you.  I  wondered  last  night  where  you 
were.  ..." 

"And  I  wondered  where  you  were." 

"I  was  here.    I've  been  here  since  Monday  morning!" 

He  moved  a  few  steps  away,  and  then  turned  back. 

"I've  always  liked  you,  Henry,"  he  said,  taking  Henry's 
hand  in  his,  * '  even  when  you  made  me  angry.  I  wish  you 
were  on  our  side.  ..." 

"I  see  no  sense  in  this  sort  of  thing,  John!" 

"I  know  you  don't.  And  perhaps  there  isn't  any  sense 
in  it,  but  that  may  not  matter.  It's  something,  isn't  it, 
to  find  men  still  willing  to  die  for  their  ideals,  even  when 
they  know  they  haven't  a  chance  of  success?  The  Post 
Office  is  full  of  young  boys,  who  want  nothing  better  than 
to  die  for  Ireland.  Well,  that's  something,  isn't  it,  in 
these  times  when  most  of  our  people  aren't  willing  to  do 
anything  but  make  money?    Good-bye  again!" 

He  went  back  to  the  Post  Office,  very  erect  and  very 
proud  and  very  resolute. 

"By  God,"  said  Henry  to  himself,  "I  wish  I  had  the 
heart  to  feel  what  he  feels!" 


I 


CHANGING  WINDS  659 


He  was  sitting  in  the  smoking-room  of  the  Club,  trying 
to  write.  He  had  written  to  Mary  earlier  in  the  evening, 
assuring  her  of  his  welfare,  and  Driffield,  a  Treasury  offi- 
cial, who  had  come  into  the  Club  for  a  few  moments,  had 
offered  to  try  and  get  it  put  into  the  special  mail  "pouch" 
which  was  sent  from  the  Castle  every  day  to  London.  *  *  You 
mustn't  say  anything  about  the  Rebellion,"  he  said.  "Just 
say  you're  all  right.  I  can't  promise  that  it'll  go  off,  but 
I'll  do  my  best!"  The  restless,  excited  feeling  which  had 
possessed  him  since  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion  still  held 
him,  and  he  was  unable  to  continue  at  anything  for  long. 
All  day  he  had  wandered  about  the  city,  learning  more  of 
its  backways  than  he  had  ever  known  before.  He  had 
penetrated  more  deeply  into  the  slums  than  he  had  done 
when  he  had  explored  them  with  Gilbert  Farlow,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  with  them 
or  with  the  people  in  them.  They  were  decaying  together, 
and  the  sooner  they  decayed,  the  better  would  it  be  for 
Ireland.  All  his  counsels  that  day  were  counsels  of  de- 
spair. What  was  the  good  of  working  and  building  when 
this  was  the  material  out  of  which  a  nation  must  be  made  ? 
What  was  the  good  of  trying  to  make  sure  foundations 
when  impatient,  undisciplined  people  like  John  Marsh  came 
and  threw  one's  work  to  the  ground?  Was  it  not  better 
that  every  Irishman  of  alert  and  vigorous  mind  should 
leave  Ireland  to  rot,  and  choose  another  country  where  men 
had  stability  of  mind  and  purpose?  .  .  . 

"But  one  must  go  on  trying.  If  the  house  be  pulled 
down,  we  must  build  it  up  again.  On§  must  go  on  try- 
ing  " 

He  would  get  his  friends  together,  and  they  would  plan 
to  save  what  they  could  from  the  wreckage.  "And  then 
we'll  begin  again!  Whatever  happens,  we  must  begin 
again!" 

He  was  tired  of  playing  Patience,  tired  of  reading,  and 


560  CHANGING  WINDS 

tired  of  sitting  still.  Perhaps,  he  thought,  he  could  write. 
It  would  be  odd  afterwards  to  think  that  he  had  written 
a  story  during  a  rebellion.  There  was  a  great  German 
.  .  .  who  was  it?  .  .  .  Heine  or  Goethe?  .  .  .  Oh,  why 
couldn  't  he  remember  names !  .  .  .  who  had  gone  on  writ- 
ing steadily,  though  there  was  battle  all  about  him,  .  .  . 
He  settled  himself  to  write,  though  he  had  no  plan  in  his 
mind,  and  as  he  wrote,  he  felt  that  the  story,  whatever  it 
might  grow  to  be,  must  be  comic.  "I  feel  like  a  clown 
making  jokes  in  the  circus  while  his  wife  is  dying,"  he  said 
to  himself.  .  .  . 

But  his  restlessness  persisted,  and  after  a  while  he  put 
his  manuscript  aside,  and  took  up  a  book  which  he  had 
found  in  the  bookcase:  William  James's  Pragmatism:  and 
began  to  read  it.  He  remembered  a  discussion  of  Prag- 
matism by  the  Improved  Tories,  when  Gilbert  had  described 
a  pragmatist  as  an  unfrocked  Jesuit.  .  .  . 

And  while  he  was  burrowing  into  the  first  chapter,  think- 
ing more  of  James's  graceful  style  than  of  his  matter,  there 
was  a  great  rattle,  an  incessant  hammer-and-rasp  noise  in 
the  street. 

''Good  God!"  he  exclaimed,  jumping  up  and  dropping 
the  book,  "what's  that?" 

Then  it  ceased,  and  there  was  a  horrible  quietness  for 
a  few  moments,  followed  by  the  crack-crack  of  rifles,  and 
then  again  the  ra-ra-ra-rat-rat-rat-rattle-rattle.  .  .  . 

''Machine  guns!"  he  exclaimed.  He  knew  instinctively 
that  they  were  machine  guns.  "It  ...  it  startles  you, 
that  noise ! ' ' 

It  went  on,  rattling,  with  little  pauses  now  and  then  as 
if  the  gun  were  taking  breath,  for  an  hour  or  more:  a 
paralysing  sound,  as  if  some  giant  were  drawing  a  great 
stick  swiftly  along  iron  railings. 

"I  think  I'd  better  put  the  light  out,"  he  said,  going 
across  the  room  to  where  the  switch  was,  and  as  he  went 
there  was  a  cracking  sound  in  the  window,  and  a  bullet 
flew  across  the  room  and  lodged  in  the  wall.  .  .  . 


CHANGING  WINDS  661 

He  switched  the  light  off,  and  stood  for  a  while  in  the 
dark.  Then  he  opened  the  door  and  went  out  and  stood  on 
the  landing.  The  servants  were  sitting  huddled  together 
on  the  staircase,  nervous  looking,  indeed,  but  not  frightened. 
It  seemed  to  him  to  be  remarkable  that  these  girls  should 
have  kept  their  nerve  as  finely  as  they  had.  He  smiled  at 
them,  as  he  closed  the  door  behind  him. 

"They're  making  a  lot  of  noise,  aren't  they?"  he  said. 

"Isn't  it  awful,  sir?"  one  of  them  answered. 

He  did  not  speak  of  the  bullet  which  had  come  into  the 
room.  "It  must,  have  been  a  stray,"  he  thought,  "and 
there 's  no  sense  in  upsetting  them ! ' ' 

"The  soldiers  are  firing  across  the  Green,"  he  said  aloud, 
"at  the  College  of  Surgeons.  I  think  we're  safe  enough 
here,  but  I'd  keep  away  from  the  windows!  ..." 

"Yes,  sir,  we  are!" 

He  went  to  his  room,  and  sat  at  the  window.  At  this 
height  it  was  unlikely  that  any  stray  bullet  would  come  near 
him.  But  he  could  not  see  any  one.  He  could  hear  the 
wild-fowl  crying  in  the  Park  .  .  .  distinctly,  in  the  pause 
of  the  firing,  he  could  hear  a  duck's  quack-quack.  .  .  . 

8 

He  went  to  bed,  and  tried  to  sleep,  but  could  not.  The 
firing  from  the  machine-guns  was  intermittent  now,  but  it 
still  went  on,  and  there  was  a  continuous  crackling  of  rifle- 
fire.  Several  times  he  got  up  and  looked  out  ...  he  had 
a  curious  and  persistent  desire  to  see  whatever  was  going 
on  ...  to  be  in  it  ..  .  extraordinarily  he  was  anxious  not 
to  miss  anything.  He  was  neither  afraid  nor  aware  of  the 
fact  that  he  was  not  afraid.  He  had  simply  the  sensation 
that  exciting  things  were  happening,  that  he  wanted  to  see 
as  much  of  them  as  possible,  that  he  was  excited,  that  his 
blood  was  flowing  rapidly  through  his  veins,  that  there  was 
something  hitting  the  inside  of  his  head,  thumping  it.  Then 
when  he  was  tired  of  straining  to  see  into  the  darkness,  he 


662  CHANGING  WINDS 

went  back  to  bed  again,  and  closed  his  eyes  and  tried  to 
sleep.  And  sometimes  he  succeeded  iu  sleeping  for  a  while 
.  .  .  but  always  the  noise  of  the  machine-guns  woke 
him.  .  .  . 

He  went  to  the  window  when  the  dawn  broke,  and  looked 
across  the  Green  to  the  College  of  Surgeons. 

"It's  still  flying,"  he  muttered  as  he  watched  the  tri- 
colour flowing  in  the  wind. 


And  now  the  Rebellion  began  to  bore  him.  He  could 
not  work,  and  the  walks  he  could  take  were  circumscribed. 
He  walked  down  to  Trinity  College  and  stood  there,  watch- 
ing the  soldiers  on  the  roof  of  the  College  as  they  fired  up 
Dame  Street  to  where  some  Sinn  Feiners  were  in  occupa- 
tion of  a  newspaper  office,  or  along  Westmoreland  Street 
towards  the  Post  Office.  Wherever  he  went,  there  was  the 
sound  of  bullets  being  fired  .  .  .  but  after  a  while,  the 
sound  ceased  to  affect  him.  There  were  snipers  on  many 
roofs  .  .  .  and  people  had  been  killed  by  stray  bullets  .  .  . 
but,  although  the  sudden  crack  of  a  rifle  overhead  made  him 
jump,  the  boredom  grew  and  increased.  He  wanted  to 
get  on  with  his  work.  .  .  . 

The  soldiers  were  pouring  into  Dublin  now  .  .  .  more 
and  more  of  them. 

"It'll  be  over  soon,"  he  said  to  himself. 

It  seemed  to  him  then  that  the  thing  he  would  remember 
always  was  the  dead  horse  which  still  lay  on  the  pavement, 
becoming  more  and  more  offensive.  Wherever  he  went, 
he  met  people  who  said  to  him,  "Have  you  seen  the  dead 
horse?"  Impossible  to  forget  the  corrupting  beast,  im- 
possible to  refrain  from  saying  too,  "Have  you  seen  the 
dead  horse?"  Magnify  that  immensely,  increase  enor- 
mously the  noise,  and  one  had  the  War!  Noise  and  stench 
and  dead  men  and  boredom !  .  .  . 

He  wandered  about  the  streets,  seeing  the  same  people, 


CHANGING  WINDS  563 

listening  to  the  same  statements,  making  the  same  remarks, 
wondering  vaguely  about  food.  He  had  seen  high  officials 
carrying  loaves  under  their  arms,  and  little  jugs  of 
milk.  .  .  . 

**I  wish  to  God  it  was  over,"  he  exclaimed.  "I'm  sick 
of  this  .  .  .  idleness ! ' ' 

He  spoke  to  a  soldier  in  Merrion  Square,  "Do  you  like 
Dublin?"  he  said. 

"Oh,  fine!"  he  answered.  "We've  been  treated  cham- 
pion. I  'aven't  seen  much  of  it  yet,  of  course,"  he  went 
on.  "I've  been  'ere  ever  since  I  landed!"  He  pointed 
to  the  pavement.  "But  I  know  this  bit  damn  well.  You 
know,"  he  went  on,  "we  thought  we  was  in  France  when 
we  arrived  'ere.  Couldn't  make  it  out  when  we  saw  all 
the  signs  in  English.  I  says  to  a  chap,  as  we  was  walking 
along,  *  'I,"  I  says,  'is  this  Booloue?'  'Naow,'  'e  says,  'it's 
Ireland.'  " 

"And  what  did  you  say?"  said  Henry. 

' '  I  said  '  Blimey ! '  "  He  moved  to  the  kerb  as  the  sol- 
dier further  along  the  street  called  "Pass  these  men  along" 
and  when  he  had  called  the  warning  to  the  next  soldier,  he 
returned  to  Henry.  "I  say,"  he  said,  "wot  are  these  Sinn 
Feiners?  I  mean  to  say  'oo  are  they?  Are  they  Irish, 
too?" 

Henry  tried  to  explain  who  the  Sinn  Feiners  were. 

"But  wot  they  want  to  do?  Wot's  the  point  of  all  this 
.  .  .  this  'umbuggin'  about?  We  don't  want  to  fight  Irish 
people  ...  we  want  to  fight  Germans!  ..."  He  looked 
about  for  a  moment,  and  then  added,  as  if  to  clinch  his 
statement,  "I  mean  to  say,  I  know  an  Irish  chap  ...  'e's 
a  friend  of  mine  .  .  .  but  I  don 't  know  no  bloody  Germans, 
an'  wot's  more  I  wouldn't  know  them  neither  .  .  .  dirty 
lot,  I  calls  'em!" 

"You  know,"  he  went  on,  "this  is  about  the  'ottest  bit 
of  work  a  chap  could  'ave  to  do.  These  snipers,  you  know, 
they  get  on  your  nerves.  I  mean  to  say,  'ere  you  are, 
standin'  'ere,  you  might  say,  in  the  dark  an'  suddenly  a 


664.  CHANGING  WINDS 

bullet  damn  near  'its  you  ...  or  mebbe  it  does  'it  you 
.  .  .  one  of  our  chaps  was  killed  in  front  of  that  'ouse  last 
night  .  .  .  they  been  swillin'  the  blood  away,  see!  .  .  ." 
Henry  looked  across  the  road  to  where  a  man  was  vigor- 
ously brooming  the  wet  pavement.  The  soldier  proceeded : 
"Well,  you  don't  know  where  it's  comiu'  from.  'E's  up 
on  one  of  these  'ere  roofs,  'idin ',  an '  you  're  down  'ere  .  .  . 
exposed.  'E  kneels  be'ind  the  parapet,  an'  'as  a  shot  at 
you,  an'  then  'e  'ops  along  the  roof  to  another  place,  an' 
'as  another  shot  at  you.  .  .  .  You  don't  'alf  begin  to  feel  a 
bit  jiggery  when  that's  'appening'.  ..." 

10 

There  was  no  malice  in  that  soldier.  He  was  puzzled, 
as  puzzled  as  he  would  have  been  if  his  brother  had  sud- 
denly seized  a  rifle  and  lain  in  wait  for  him.  He  looked 
upon  the  Irish  as  his  comrades,  not  his  enemies.  "I  mean 
to  say,  we're  all  the  same,  I  mean  to  say!  ..."  He  had 
been  in  camp  at  Watford.  "We  was  in  a  picture-palace, 
me  an'  my  pal  ...  a  whole  lot  of  us  was  there  .  .  .  and 
then  a  message  was  put  on  the  screen;  'All  the  Dashes 
report  at  once ! '  I  never  thought  nothink  of  it  you  know. 
Of  course,  I  went  all  right.  But  I  thought  it  was  just  one 
of  these  bloomin'  spoof  entrainments.  They  done  that  to 
us  before  .  .  .  two  or  three  times  .  .  .  just  to  see  'ow 
quick  they  could  do  it  ...  an'  I  was  gettin'  'a  bit  fed-up 
with  it.  I'd  said  *  Good-bye'  to  a  girl  three  times  .  .  . 
an '  it  was  gettin '  a  bit  monotonous.  '  At  it  again, '  I  says  to 
my  pal,  as  we  hooked  back  to  the  camp,  but  when  we  was  in 
the  train,  an'  it  didn't  stop  an'  go  back  again,  I  says  to 
'im,  ♦  'lUoa,'  I  says,  'we're  off!'  An'  I  'adn't  said  'Good- 
bye*  to  'er  this  time.  I  thought  to  myself,  *I  won't  make 
a  bloomin'  ass  of  myself  this  time !'  An'  there  we  was  .  .  . 
off  at  last!  'This  is  a  nice-old- 'ow-d'ye-do!*  I  says.  I 
didn't  want  the  girl  to  think  I  was  'oppin'  it  like  that 
.  .  .  sayin'   nothink   or  anythink.  .  .  .  When  we   got   to 


CHANGING  WINDS  565 

Kingstown  an'  'eard  we  was  in  Ireland  .  .  .  well,  I  mean 
to  say,  it  surprised  me,  I  tell  you.  .  .  .  Wot  I  can't  make 
out  is,  wot's  it  all  about?  I  mean  to  say,  wot  do  these 
chaps  want?"  , 

"They  want  to  be  free!  .  .  ." 

"But  ain't  they  free?  I  mean  to  say,  ain't  they  as  free 
as  me?" 

"They  don't  think  so." 

"Well,  wot  can  I  do  that  they  can't  do?" 

Henry  did  not  know.  "You  ast  me  anythink,"  the  sol- 
dier went  on,  "they're  a  lot  freer 'n  wot  we  are.  I  mean 
to  say,  we  got  conscription  in  our  country,  but  they  ain't 
got  it  'ere.  ..." 

There  was  another  interruption,  to  enable  a  motor-cyclist 
to  pass  along.  When  he  returned  to  Henry,  he  said,  "You 
know,  when  we  got  'ere,  an'  all  the  people  come  out  their 
'ouses  an'  treated  us  like  their  long-lost  brother,  we 
couldn't  make  it  out  at  all,  an'  when  we  'eard  about  the 
Sinn  Feiners,  we  didn't  know  wot  to  think.  I  mean  to 
say,  we  didn't  know  'oo  they  was.  One  of  our  chaps 
thought  they  was  black  .  .  .  you  know  .  .  .  niggers  .  .  . 
but  I  told  'im  not  to  be  a  bloody  fool.  'They  don't  'ave 
niggers  in  Ireland,'  I  says,  'They're  the  same  as  us,'  I 
says.    'I  mean  to  say  .  .  .  they're  white!  .  .  .'  " 

12 

He  wrote  to  Mary  again,  hoping  that  he  would  be  able  to 
get  it  into  the  Castle  "pouch,"  and  then  he  went  to  seek 
for  Driffield  who  had  promised  to  try  and  send  his  previous 
letter  to  England  by  the  same  means,  and  Driffield,  very 
dubious,  took  the  letter  and  said  he  would  do  what  he  could. 
She  would  be  full  of  alarm  ...  he  did  not  know  whether 
she  had  received  his  messages,  and,  of  course,  he  had  re- 
ceived none  from  her.  It  was  Thursday  now,  and  still 
the  rebellion  was  not  suppressed.  The  city  was  full  of 
dead  and  wounded  men  and  women,  and  there  was  diffi- 


666  CHANGING  WINDS 

culty  about  burial.  He  thought  of  people  in  the  first  grief 
for  their  dead,  unwilling  that  the  hour  of  interment  should 
come  .  .  .  and  then,  when  it  came,  and  there  could  not  be 
interment,  suddenly  finding  their  grief  turned  to  consterna- 
tion, and  what  had  been  the  object  of  mourning  love,  be- 
come abhorrent,  so  that  there  was  an  unquenchable  desire, 
a  craving  that  it  might  be  taken  away.  .  .  . 

It  was  dangerous  to  be  out  of  doors  after  seven  o'clock, 
and  so,  since  no  one  came  to  the  Club,  and  it  was  impos- 
sible to  read  or  write,  he  spent  most  of  the  evening  in 
brooding.  ...  If  the  rebellion  were  not  speedily  sup- 
pressed, it  might  be  impossible  for  him  to  get  to  Bovey- 
hayne  in  time  for  his  marriage  .  .  .  but  the  rebellion  could 
not  last  very  long  now,  and  at  worst  his  marriage  would 
only  be  postponed  a  little  while.  His  mind  moved  from 
thought  to  thought,  from  Mary  to  Gilbert  and  Ninian,  then 
to  John  Marsh  and  his  father  and  to  the  boy  in  Stephen's 
Green  who  had  been  told  to  dig  a  trench,  but  thought  that 
he  was  digging  his  grave  .  .  .  and  then,  inconsequently, 
he  saw  in  his  imagination  the  ridiculous  figure  of  a  looter 
whom  he  had  seen  in  Sackville  Street,  swaggering  up  and 
down,  clothed  in  evening  dress,  and  carrying  a  lady's  sun- 
shade. He  had  a  panama  hat  on  his  head,  and  was  wear- 
ing very  thick-soled  brown  boots  .  .  .  and  loosely  tied 
about  his  waist  were  a  pair  of  corsets.  .  .  . 

He  laughed  at  the  remembrance,  and  as  he  laughed,  he 
looked  towards  the  window,  and  saw  a  great  red  glare  in 
the  sky.  From  the  centre  of  the  city,  flames  were  reaching 
up,  vast  and  red  and  terrible.  .  .  . 

"Good  God!"  he  exclaimed,  "the  place  is  on  fire!" 

13 

The  fire  continued  during  the  whole  of  the  next  day.  It 
was  impossible  to  get  near  the  burning  buildings,  and  so, 
though  people  knew  of  the  fire,  they  did  not  know  of  its 
extent.    The  south  side  of  the  city,  separated  from  the 


CHANGING  WINDS  567 

north,  where  the  fire  was,  by  the  river,  knew  nothing  of 
what  was  happening  across  the  Liffey.  It  seemed  now, 
this  horror  following  on  the  horror  of  the  fighting,  that 
Dublin  must  be  destroyed,  that  nothing  could  save  it  from 
the  flames.  .  .  .  Then,  by  what  efforts  no  one  can  ever 
realise,  the  jBre  was  controlled,  and  the  reddened  sky  be- 
came dark,  and  frightened  citizens  went  to  their  beds  to 
such  sleep  as  they  could  obtain. 

14 

The  next  day,  the  Rebellion  collapsed.  Henry  had  walked 
out  of  Dublin,  for  it  was  easier  now  to  move  about,  and 
coming  back  in  the  afternoon,  suddenly  felt  that  the  Ee- 
bellion  was  over.  A  man  came  cycling  past  at  a  great  pace, 
and  as  he  went  by,  he  shouted  to  Henry,  "They've  sur- 
rendered!" and  then  was  gone.  There  was  a  cooler  feel 
in  the  air.  It  seemed  to  him  that  a  great  tension  had  been 
relaxed  .  .  .  that,  after  a  day  oT  intolerable  heat,  there  had 
come  an  evening  of  cool  winds.  As  he  approached  the  city, 
he  could  see  groups  of  people  standing  about  in  the  road, 
and  he  went  to  one  of  them,  and  asked  if  the  news  were 
true. 

"Some  of  them's  surrendered,"  he  was  told,  "but  there's 
a  lot  of  snipers  still  about!" 

They  could  hear  desultory  firing  as  they  spoke. 

"Ah,  they'll  give  in  quick  enough  now,"  a  man  said 
"Sure,  they  can't  hold  out  any  longer!" 

He  hurried  back  to  the  city,  and  when  he  reached  the 
Club,  he  saw  that  the  tri-colour  was  no  longer  flying  over 
the  College  of  Surgeons. 


THE  FOURTEENTH  CHAPTER 


On  Sunday  morning,  he  met  Lander,  who  had  a  military 
pass,  and  together  they  went  to  Saekville  Street.  .  .  . 
There  were  some  who  had  said  that  this  was  the  proudest 
street  in  the  world.  It  had  little  pride  now.  Where  there 
had  been  shops  and  hotels,  there  were  now  heai)s  of  rubble 
and  calcined  bricks.  The  street  was  covered  with  grey  ash 
that  was  still  hot,  and  one  had  to  walk  warily  lest  one's 
feet  should  be  burnt.  The  Post  Office  still  stood,  but  the 
roof  was  gone  and  the  inside  of  it  was  empty :  a  hulk,  a  dis- 
embowelled carcase.  ... 

•'MacDonagh  and  Pearse  and  Connolly  have  been  taken," 
said  Lander.     "They  say  Connolly's  badly  wounded.  .  .  ." 

"Have  you  heard  anything  of  ...  of  John  INIarsh?" 

"Yes.  He's  dead.  They  say  he  was  killed  soon  after 
the  fighting  began  ...  in  the  street!  ..." 

Henry  did  not  speak.  He  glanced  about  him  at  the 
ruin  and  wreck  of  a  city  which,  though  it  had  many  times 
filled  him  with  anger,  yet  filled  him  also  with  love;  and 
for  a  while  he  could  not  see  clearly.  .  .  .  Somewhere  in 
this  street,  John  Marsh  had  been  killed.  He  had  died,  as 
he  had  desired,  for  Ireland,  and  a  man  can  do  no  more 
than  give  his  life  for  his  country  .  .  .  but  what  was  the 
good  of  his  dying?  It  was  not  enous:h  that  a  man  should 
die  .  .  .  he  must  also  die  well  and  to  purpose.  Oh,  in- 
deed, John  had  believed  that  such  a  death  as  this  would  be 
a  good  death,  to  much  purpose,  but  it  is  not  the  dead  who 
can  judge  of  that  ...  it  is  the  living  to  whom  now  and 
forever  is  the  task  of  judging  what  the  dead  have  done. 

668 


CHANGING  WINDS  569 

"It's  a  pity,"  said  Lander,  "that  the  slums  weren't  de- 
stroyed, too!  .  .  ." 

"Perhaps,"  Henry  answered,  "we  can  build  a  finer  city 
after  this!" 

"Perhaps,"  said  Lander  dubiously,  for  Lander  knew 
the  ways  of  men  and  had  small  faith  in  them. 

2 

They  walked  along  the  quays  until  they  reached  the 
Four  Courts,  and  while  they  were  standing  there,  a  sickly 
woman,  with  a  fretful,  whining  voice,  plucked  at  Henry's 
arm. 

"Is  it  over,  mister?"  she  said,  and  when  he  nodded  his 
head,  she  turned  away,  exclaiming  fervently,  "Oh,  thanks 
be  to  the  Holy  Mother  of  God !" 

"The  Holy  Mother  of  God  had  damned  little  to  do  with 
it,"  Henry  said  to  Lander.    "It  was  machine  guns.  ..." 


Lander  had  obtained  a  permit  for  him,  so  that  he  could  go 
to  England,  and  in  a  little  while,  he  would  leave  the  Club 
and  go  to  Westland  Row  to  catch  the  train  to  Kingstown. 
There  was  a  strange  quietness  in  his  heart.  He  had  lived 
through  a  terror  and  had  not  been  afraid.  He  had  seen 
men  immolating  themselves  gladly  because  they  had  be- 
lieved that  by  so  doing  they  would  make  their  country  a 
finer  one  to  live  in. 

"It  was  the  wrong  way,"  he  said  to  himself,  "but  in  the 
end,  nothing  matters  but  that  a  man  shall  offer  his  life  for 
his  belief!" 

Gilbert  Parlow  and  Ninian  Graham  had  not  sought,  as 
he  had  sought,  to  escape  from  destiny  or  to  elude  death. 
It  was  fore-ordained  that  old  men  would  make  wars  and 
that  3^oung  men  would  pay  the  price  of  them  .  .  .  and  it 
is  of  no  use  to  try  to  save  oneself.    John  Marsh,  too,  had 


570  CHANGING  WINDS 

had  to  pay  for  the  incompetence  and  folly  of  old  men  who 
had  wrangled  and  made  bitterness.  .  .  .  And  now,  in  his 
turn,  he  must  pay  the  price,  too.  One  must  die  .  .  .  in 
that  there  is  no  choice  .  .  .  but  one  may  die  finely  or 
one  may  die  meanly  .  .  .  and  in  that  there  is  choice.  Gil- 
bert and  Ninian  and  John,  each  in  his  way,  had  died  finely. 
It  might  have  been  that  he  would  have  died  meanly  in  Dub- 
lin, casually  killed,  for  no  purpose,  for  no  cause.  .  .  .  Well, 
he  had  not  been  killed  meanly.  There  was  still  time  for 
him  to  live  on  the  level  of  his  friends.  If  youth  has  had 
committed  to  it  the  task  of  redeeming  the  world  from  the 
follies  of  the  Old,  Youth  must  not  shrink  from  the  labour, 
even  though  it  may  feel  that  the  Old  should  redeem  them- 
selves. .  .  . 

He  would  go  to  Boveyhayne  and  marry  Mary,  and  then 
he  would  take  her  to  his  home  ...  he  must  do  that  .  .  . 
and  when  he  had  given  his  house  to  her,  he  would  enlist 
as  a  soldier.  "Life  isn't  worth  while,  if  one  is  afraid  to 
lose  it  ...  a  year  or  two  more,  what  do  they  matter  if  a 
job  be  shirked?"  *'It  isn't  the  time  one  lives  that  mat- 
ters," he  went  on,  "it's  what  one  does  in  the  time!" 


As  the  mail-boat  steamed  out  of  the  harbour,  he  climbed 
to  the  top  deck  and  stood  there  gazing  back  at  the  shore. 
Exquisitely  beautiful,  Ireland  looked  in  the  evening  glow. 
Up  the  river,  in  an  opal  mist,  he  could  see  Dublin,  still  sore 
from  her  latest  wounds,  and  here  close  at  hand,  he  saw  the 
waves  of  mountains  reaching  far  inland,  each  mountain 
shining  in  the  light  with  a  great  mingling  of  colours.  Beau- 
tiful, but  more  than  beautiful !  Other  lands  had  beauty, 
too,  more  beauty,  perhaps,  than  Ireland,  but  if  he  were 
leaving  them  as  he  was  now  leaving  Ireland,  he  should  not 
feel  the  grief  that  he  now  felt.  This  was  his  land  ...  his 
own  country  .  .  .  and  the  elements  which  had  been  min- 
gled to  make  it,  had  been  mingled  also  to  make  him,  and 


CHANGING  WINDS  571 

he  and  it  were  one.  It  was  strange  that  he  should  carry 
so  heavy  a  heart  to  Boveyhayne,  when  he  should  have  gone 
there  gladly  .  .  .  but  it  was  not  of  j\lary  or  his  marriage 
that  he  was  then  thinking.  It  was  of  the  farewell  he  was 
making  to  this  old  city  which  had  known  much  grief  and 
many  troubles.  When  he  returned  to  Ireland  he  would 
go  straight  to  Ballymartin,  by  Belfast,  from  England.  He 
would  not  see  Dublin  again.  Firmly  fixed  in  his  mind, 
was  that  belief.  He  would  serve  .  .  .  and  he  would  die. 
Foolish,  he  told  himself,  to  think  like  that,  but,  even  while 
he  was  rebuking  himself,  the  thought  thrust  itself  into  his 
mind  again.  .  .  . 


The  boat  was  almost  out  of  sight  of  land.  He  had  stood 
at  the  end  of  the  deck,  gazing  back  at  Ireland  until  only 
the  clouded  head  of  a  mountain  could  be  seen,  and  then 
that  too  had  been  hidden.  He  turned  and  looked  forward, 
and  as  he  did  so,  he  saw  in  the  distance,  low  in  the  sea, 
the  hulls  of  three  ships  of  war.  The  mail-boat  slowed  down, 
as  they  approached,  to  let  them  pass.  Naked  and  lithe, 
they  looked,  as  they  thrust  their  bodies  through  the  sea, 
sending  the  water  up  from  their  bows  in  shining  arches. 
He  could  see  the  men  standing  about  the  decks,  looking 
steadily  ahead  .  .  .  and  then  the  war-ships  passed  on  to 
their  work,  and  the  mail-boat  gathered  up  speed  and 
plunged  on  towards  Wales.  Over  there,  he  tliought,  some- 
where in  that  haze,  is  England,  and  beyond  England, 
France  and  Flanders  and  the  fields  of  blood  and  pain.  .  .  . 


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^^y  2  9  1933- 


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AUG  I     WSi^-^ 


Form  L-9-15w»-7,*31 


PR 

273c     Changing 
windsT 


UNIVERSJ  T  of  CALIFORNIA 


LOS  AMGELES 
LIBRARY 


